


Coming Home

by Dark and Stormy (betagyre)



Series: Spells of Healing and Power [3]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: AU Pro-Mage Viscountess Hawke, Adopted Children, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Conversations, Cuddling & Snuggling, Divine Leliana (Dragon Age), Dragon Age: Inquisition Quest - Here Lies the Abyss, Epilogue, F/F, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Post-War, Sexual Content, Viscountess Hawke
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:35:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 26,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22344196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betagyre/pseuds/Dark%20and%20Stormy
Summary: After the dust has settled from the War Against the Elder One, the couples of Thedas reflect on what they have been through, lost, gained, and what they hope the future holds.Chapter 1 - F!Cousland/LelianaChapter 2 & 3 - F!Hawke/AndersChapter 4 - Varric/CassandraChapter 5 (future) - M!Trevelyan/DorianChapter 6 (future) - No story, just a listing of who is who in Ferelden and Kirkwall in the AU for reference.
Relationships: Anders/Female Hawke, Cassandra Pentaghast/Varric Tethras, Dorian Pavus/Male Trevelyan, Female Cousland/Leliana (Dragon Age)
Series: Spells of Healing and Power [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1199182
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	1. Joie de Vivre:  Elissa Cousland and Leliana

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome all and thank you for reading this. It’s a set of chapters, all set post- _Inquisition_ , about each game’s chief couple in this alternate-universe worldstate + Varric/Cassandra.
> 
> About that AU, for those who have not read my novel-length _Dragon Age_ stories. The main events—in my view, that means the Blight, Amaranthine conflict, Qunari attack, Mage-Templar War, and Corypheus—all happened. However, they and the events leading to them did not all happen exactly like canon (fixed canon or player’s choice). I wrote some things in the novels that you can’t do in the games.
> 
> Here is a very high-level view of the alternate-universe events (there are others at a more granular level, which will come out in the characters’ conversations): Hawke and Anders met in Dragon 9:27 during one of his escapes and had a child together, but he was recaptured before the baby was born. Following that, Leliana had a relationship with Hawke in Lothering that she ended just before she left town with Elissa’s party, because she had her vision and furthermore could see that Anders still had Hawke’s heart. They corresponded again after Divine Justinia ascended, keeping each other abreast of the happenings in Kirkwall and in Justinia’s court. Hawke had the ambition of becoming Viscountess and managed it after the Qunari attack. Because she had a title, they had a family to think of, and Elthina was no longer Grand Cleric anyway due to Hawke’s political machinations, Anders did not blow up the Chantry. Instead the provocation that started the war was (besides the fact that a mage was openly ruling a great city and ordering reforms to the Circle of Kirkwall) to assassinate Meredith and all the Templars who backed her, and then to declare Kirkwall’s Circle free of Templar supervision.
> 
> The Varric/Cassandra ship, in this AU, does not have a verbally abusive beginning, because she went to Kirkwall to investigate reports from Hawke of red lyrium among the Templars there, rather than to arrest Hawke. She and Varric got off on a much better note. :-)
> 
> Although the story is rated E, I’m afraid that the Dorian/Trevelyan chapter will only be rated mild M. I just find it easier to write sexually explicit scenes when a woman is involved.

_Dragon 9:42, Amaranthine._

Elissa Cousland, Hero of the Fifth Blight and Warden-Commander of Ferelden, stared at herself unhappily in the mirror as she tightened the buckles on her armor. A pretty face with grey-blue eyes stared back at her, a face that was still young, but Elissa knew that there were fine lines around her eyes that had not been there eleven years ago. The Blight and everything that had happened since then had aged her.

_But more than that, I feel old,_ she thought. Her personal device, the double griffon of the Grey Wardens encircled by the victory wreath of the Cousland family, was etched across her breastplate. She had designed and worn it ever since she defeated the Archdemon, and she had always been proud to wear it—but now it seemed to hold a tinge of cruelty. This heraldic device and what it stood for now seemed to circumscribe Elissa’s life and future: a future of institutional duty.  _A Grey Warden and a Cousland. That is all that I will be now._

The newly elected Divine Victoria, merely a fortnight upon the Sunburst Throne, was making her first trip away from the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux. She had chosen for her visit the Chantry of Our Lady Redeemer in Amaranthine, an important landmark in Andrastian history, as the port was where Andraste was taken aboard a slave ship into bondage in Tevinter. It was an honor to Ferelden, Elissa thought bitterly, and a suitable site for the new Divine’s first official visit, since  _Divine Victoria_ had been born in Ferelden.

_Leliana, not Divine Victoria,_ a little voice in Elissa’s head whispered. She scowled. For far too long, she’d had an actual voice whispering in her head, a voice that she was certain had ruined the most important relationship she had ever had, the love that had lasted eleven years. She didn’t need another voice in her head even when she knew it was just a disagreement that she had with herself, born of a foolish and ridiculous hope.

Elissa bit her lip.  _She is coming here for me too,_ she thought,  _but it is to say goodbye. I thought the Maker sent her into my life. When she returned to me in 9:31 after... after her dark night of the soul in Orlais, with Marjolaine... I was sure of it. But now the Maker has taken her back._

_No. That’s not it. I did it. I did this. After our separation in the war... the misunderstanding, the mistake I made... Divine Justinia... my absence and silence when the Inquisition needed me, when_ she _needed me... she has chosen the Maker, and I have no one to blame for that but myself._

She pondered for a moment what to do about her hair before deciding to wear it in the old style, her mother’s favorite style of two coiled braids in the back.  _I miss you,_ she thought as she quickly did it up. It was an elegant style that she could do herself; as a fighter by profession, she had to know how to braid her hair quickly and effectively. As she threaded the sections together, the wreath of the Couslands, her family, caught her eye again.  _Victory wreath. “In war, victory.” Divine Victoria. How can such a positive word be so cold?_

She finished her hair and tied the coils behind her head. In the mirror, she looked like a younger version of her mother.  _Seawolf,_ she thought with poignant affection, thinking of her mother’s family and the gift of communing with wolves and direwolves that passed through them to her, the legendary gift of the ranger....  _I will still have that,_ she thought. In her girlhood, when she had been alone and coming to terms with her same-sex attraction, the canines that were drawn to her had been friends and hunting partners as she trekked through the mountainous woods of the Storm Coast to blow off steam and get away from noble boys’ unwanted flirtations. Companion animals loved as nearly unconditionally as was possible. She smiled faintly at that thought as she opened the door and entered the corridor of Vigil’s Keep.

“Mama!”

Elissa whirled around. A ten-year-old elven boy hurried down the hallway, dressed in fine clothing. Elissa smiled again as he reached her.

“Mama, I’m ready to go to the Chantry!” he said enthusiastically. “I cannot wait to see Amethyne again—and Mama Leliana too.”

Elissa hated correcting him. “She is Divine Victoria now, Ellandrion,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “You mustn’t call her Mama Leliana in front of the Grand Cleric or the King and Queen.”

The boy nodded solemnly. “I know,” he said. “But I can call her that when she is alone with us, can’t I?”

“I....” Elissa broke off unhappily. She grimaced as she faced him. “Let’s ask _her_ what we should call her on those occasions, shall we? If we get the chance today, that is.”

Ellandrion fell silent as he walked next to his adoptive mother, apparently understanding now that something was wrong. Elissa suppressed another sigh. She had dreaded this especially, telling Ellandrion how things were going to have to be different in their lives from now on.

As she, the boy, and a complement of fellow Grey Warden guards left Vigil’s Keep with her to escort them to the Chantry of Amaranthine, she reflected on how he had come into her life—he and Amethyne, his first cousin by blood but sister by upbringing and affection. Iona, Amethyne’s birth mother, had died in the massacre of Highever—in Elissa’s own bedroom. Although she knew on some level that it was not her fault, and that Iona likely would have been murdered anyway by Howe’s men, Elissa had blamed herself. She had felt terrible about it, especially when she found eight-year-old Amethyne in the alienage of Denerim during the Blight, living on the muddy alleyways with her infant cousin in her arms, orphaned by the enslavement and abduction of his parents. She had sent coin to the alienage hahren for the children’s care until the Archdemon, Architect, and Mother were defeated, and, with a respite from battle, she had the leisure to adopt the elven children and raise them in Vigil’s Keep with Leliana. “Mama” and “Mama Leliana” were the only parents that Ellandrion had ever known, and Amethyne had always been a sister to him even though he knew the truth now.

_I was a fool,_ Elissa thought as she walked toward the Chantry.  _I thought I was doing the right thing for the world by closing myself from the Inquisition, but was I? I have now cost my son one of his parents, the only parents he remembers. How can I forgive myself for that?_

* * *

Elissa held her head high as the Grey Warden contingent entered the Chantry. The elf boy hurrying to keep pace with her, she allowed herself to be escorted into the grand sanctuary where the high nobles, royal family, and Grand Cleric waited. The Arls of West Hills, South Reach, Redcliffe—and Arlessa Bella of Redcliffe—acknowledged her silently. She passed by her brother Fergus, who gave her a sympathetic look and a brief squeeze of the shoulder—or it would have been a squeeze if she had not been wearing armor. Elissa could not meet the eyes of his wife Alfstanna or their twins. It was too painful, since _her_ family was now fractured. She also avoided the gaze of Teyrna Cauthrien or her daughter and husband—even though Loghain, as the captain of the Gwaren post of Grey Wardens, tried to respectfully acknowledge her as his commander. She bowed courteously to Anora, Alistair, and five-year-old Princess Celia.

“Warden-Commander,” spoke the Grand Cleric Boann in kindly tones. “You are most welcome.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,” she said, keeping her eyes down. Her voice sounded almost dead to her own ears.

“Before I introduce Her Perfection, there is someone else who wants to see you,” said the high priest, smiling faintly.

Elissa was certain that she knew whom the priest meant, and sure enough, when Boann beckoned toward the back of the Chantry where the initiates and choir waited for the Divine, one figure in particular stepped away from the rest of the flock in Chantry robes—the one person in that group with pointed ears and a large-eyed elven face, the most beautiful face of all the initiates. Ellandrion burst into a grin as his sister-by-adoption approached.

Elissa smiled as Amethyne greeted the rest of her family, clearly a bit nervous showing such affection in front of the Fereldan Crown and high nobles—the _human_ high nobles and monarchs. She was the first elven initiate to the priesthood since the time of Andraste’s disciples, and the first in the established Chantry at all. Elissa felt a pang, though a good one for a change, at the thought that this was possible in part because of Leliana’s ascension. It was not entirely due to that—Grand Cleric Boann, who had become Ferelden’s high priest after her predecessor was killed at the ill-fated Conclave of Haven, had always favored elves more than her fellow priests—but the solid, firm approval of the new Divine had given the Grand Cleric the courage to permit it. Elissa recalled how Warden Velanna had strongly disapproved of Amethyne’s career choice, but Amethyne _was_ Andrastian. Like most alienage elves, she had been raised in that religion from birth, and even after learning about the Dalish faith, she had stayed Andrastian. In Elissa’s opinion, elves who decided to follow this faith should have the same opportunities in their religion as humans who did.

_And because of Leliana, she will,_ Elissa thought, taking some poignant comfort in that.

“Well, where is she?” Ellandrion spoke up impatiently. Elissa stifled a laugh, and as she lowered her head, she caught a glimpse of mirth in Teyrna Cauthrien’s face as well—but Amethyne, horrified, hushed him at once.

Keeping a smile from pulling too hard at the corners of her mouth as well, Grand Cleric Boann then announced the honored guest, Her Perfection Most Holy Divine Victoria, First of Her Name. The new Divine emerged from the back hall of the Chantry as the assembled faithful rose to their feet in respect. Elissa took a breath as her former lover appeared, willing herself not to betray her emotions.  _I had eleven glorious years with her,_ she told herself determinedly,  _and I will always cherish that. Nothing can take that away._

Leliana wore holy vestments that entirely concealed her sunset-orange hair, such an unusual color for a Divine, since they were mostly elderly women when elected. It was strange to observe her lover in these garments. Elissa was accustomed to seeing her in leathers and chain mail that offered a flattering view of her feminine outline while being as protective as armor should be—though Elissa understood that Leliana later took to wearing the cloaks of a spy when she was serving the Inquisition.  _These vestments are armor too, of a sort,_ Elissa thought with a pang.

Leliana kept an unreadable expression on her face as she gazed at the crowd. When she met Elissa’s eyes, her expression did not falter, even for a fraction of a second. Elissa’s heart hurt again at that.  _Is it her bardic training—or does she truly feel nothing for me anymore, after what happened during the Inquisition?_ the Warden-Commander wondered.

Leliana smiled serenely and began in earnest. “Your Royal Majesties, sisters and brothers in the Maker, and lords and ladies of Ferelden. I come before you today, to the holy site where the Prophet Andraste last looked upon the land of her birth before her captivity, to confer the blessings of the Maker, and to celebrate and observe the triumph of good over evil, with the defeat of the ancient magister whose quest of destruction threatened us all....”

Elissa held her adopted children’s hands, even nineteen-year-old Amethyne’s, as Leliana led the faithful in prayer.

She barely remembered the events following this. Leliana— _Victoria—_ led the blessing of an artifact, a mage’s staff, that Inquisitor Trevelyan had used in his final defeat of Corypheus, declaring it a weapon of the Maker Himself used against His enemy. It was a bold political statement, but then, Leliana always had been an idealistic woman.

At the end of the service, Leliana caught Elissa’s eyes with her own gaze. A mild smile formed on her face as her gaze darted quickly to a specific door in the Chantry and then back, questioningly, to Elissa. Elissa had not spent years with this woman to not understand her little codes, the signs and signals of a bard by training. Leliana wanted a private meeting with her. It was more than she had hoped for.

* * *

With Amethyne taking care of her little brother, Elissa was able to escape the nobles of Ferelden and hurry discreetly into the room with the Divine, a small library normally used by the Revered Mother of Amaranthine. Leliana walked quickly to a specific bookcase and pushed it aside almost effortlessly, revealing a concealed doorway that led to a smaller, secret room. Elissa gaped as Leliana gave her a coy smile that was heartbreaking in its familiarity. The room held a long sofa, a pair of tables, and assorted crates.

“This is a secret I never knew,” Elissa remarked as Leliana lit a candle in the room and moved the bookcase back in place with a bar mounted on the back of it. “I’ve ruled Amaranthine since the end of the Blight, and yet....”

“I do not think that even the Revered Mother knows,” Leliana said. “This is something that Divine Justinia once spoke of to me.” She sat on one end of the sofa.

There. It was said, the first outright reference to Justinia, the heart of the terrible events that had come between them. Elissa could not hold back.

“Leliana,” she burst out, heedless of her new holy name. “I’m sorry. I’m _so_ sorry—”

Leliana reached for Elissa’s hands and pulled her down to sit beside her, close but not touching. “You tried to warn us that something was wrong in the Grey Wardens of Orlais. You and the other Warden leaders—Loghain and Finn—and Stroud, of course. You warned us not to hold the Conclave... and we did not listen.”

“Leliana....”

“Her death was not of your making, Elissa,” Leliana said seriously. “I admit that there was a time when I blamed many for it... myself, of course, but also Viscountess Hawke and Anders... and yes, you, I am ashamed to say... but she died because of a monster who is now dead and a group of traitorous Wardens who betrayed their oaths. That is the plain truth.”

Elissa gazed down, resting her head in her hands. “I abandoned you during the war against Corypheus. I avoided the Inquisition and gave orders to my captains to do the same. I didn’t mean... I had a reason for it,” she said, her voice breaking. “It seems like a _stupid_ reason now, but....”

Leliana raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t _disappear._ You wrote us an explanation, and it was a valid decision with legitimate reasoning, Elissa.”

“Valid,” she said, the word sounding sour and rancid on her tongue. “I suppose it was. Valid to avoid exchanging information with the Inquisition, since Corypheus might have been able to get into our minds and ferret out useful secrets about his enemy, or so we feared. Valid.” She sighed bitterly. “You had lost Justinia. I _knew_ what she meant to you, you had just lost her in the most horrific of ways, and I sent you no comfort. Even if it was _valid_ to avoid sharing information due to the risk, I was wrong to cut you off entirely. I _was,_ Leliana,” she insisted as Leliana looked to object. “I was afraid... afraid of learning _anything,_ even your moods and feelings. That monster—if he had been able to read Wardens’ thoughts, as we all feared he could, he could have used _anything._ He played people against each other. I was afraid... but I was still wrong. It was a time to be brave. You needed me and I wasn’t there, and all I can do now is offer my apology. I’m so, so sorry.”

Leliana sat in thought, considering what Elissa had just told her, before replying. “He _did_ play people against each other,” she said thoughtfully. “He manipulated our fears....”

“Then that is what he did to me. I heard about... Loghain told me about the events at Adamant. The Fade... the Nightmare demon.... It is a miracle that everyone came out of that. When we were in the Fade during the Blight, as we retook the Circle, things were bad enough. And we weren’t in it physically. What was _that_ like?”

“I was not a part of it,” Leliana said briefly. “It was the Inquisitor, six of his companions, Warden Loghain, and Anders. Anders and Cole realized that the demon was the source of the false Calling and that it had to be utterly destroyed for its hold on the Grey Wardens to cease.” Her cheeks dimpled. “Justice and Mercy agreeing at last, I was told. That alone must have been marvelous. They were _constantly_ arguing before, and then he went back to Kirkwall after....”

“I do remember when the feeling suddenly left me,” Elissa said, unable to see humor yet or talk about other people. “It was a relief. None of us could make sense of it... most of us had taken Avernus’s potions, which he had said had prevented _his_ Calling, but then we felt it anyway. We did think it might have had something to do with Corypheus, of course. And when the feeling left... we hoped that it might have meant his defeat, until we heard otherwise and Loghain sent his report.”

“I wish I could have been in the group,” Leliana said, unable to look at Elissa. “Cassandra was, and I envy her. They saw a... presence... that guided them....” She broke off, pain in her voice. Elissa thought she saw tears form in the corners of her eyes. “They said that the entity claimed to be a manifestation of Justinia. Whether that is true, I do not know... but to have had the closure....”

Elissa sighed as silence fell again. “I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I should have contacted you then, since I no longer heard the false Calling, but I was still distrustful of myself and my own mind. I didn’t know what Corypheus could do. There were reports that he even commanded an Archdemon, and Loghain could not definitely say otherwise. He had seen the dragon itself at Adamant. But...” she choked back a sob, “we should not have suffered alone.”

Another silence fell before Leliana replied. Her voice was husky. “I will not lie,” she said. “I was hurt.” She gazed ahead, as though looking at something past Elissa. “I was... dark during that time. I had reverted back to a form of myself that I had tried to put behind me years ago, before I met you, before I even met Caitlyn Hawke. I dealt harshly with cowardice and treason in the Inquisition. I received your letter of explanation for why you and the other Wardens would be keeping to yourselves, and I _understood,_ but... it still made me feel angry and hurt. I will not lie to you about that.”

“And it probably reinforced your decision to be harsh,” Elissa said quietly, “that we were determined to ‘do the right thing for the greater good’ at the cost of our own emotions.” Her words were acid as she spoke them.

“It did precisely that,” Leliana admitted, “until Trevelyan confronted me and urged me to recall what else I was.”

_Someone else was there for her instead of me,_ Elissa thought bitterly.  _Someone else talked her through it._ Although she knew that Max Trevelyan had not even been attracted to women, and was merely a friend to her, this hurt. Leliana had needed an understanding friend, but Elissa had not even been  _that_ for her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered again. “It should have been me. I should have written personal letters to you. I should have tried harder to stop you from holding the Conclave, for that matter.”

Leliana continued, unable to pause for Elissa’s pain. “It was not just Justinia’s death that did that to me. It had been creeping up on me for a while, I realize now. The war between mages and Templars... the schism that Starkhaven and its allies declared... Elissa, I realized that I was angry with many people, as I said before. Justinia wanted to reform the Circles and expand mage rights while  _preventing_ war and schism, and it seemed to me that my own friends were determined to provoke both, or at least did not care if it happened. Caitlyn wrote to me on occasion... I knew that she and Anders were frustrated with Justinia’s carefulness and what they saw as her slow pace... but  _they_ frustrated  _me_ in return, since Caitlyn seemed determined to move as fast and as radically as she could. Let alone some of the provocations  _he_ engaged in....”

In spite of everything, a dark chuckle escaped Elissa. She remembered first meeting Caitlyn Hawke, Viscountess of Kirkwall, in Wintermarch 9:35 when the controversial mage ruler made a diplomatic visit to Denerim to secure Ferelden as an ally for her city. At the same time that she was in Ferelden, her husband, Regent of Kirkwall in her absence, was holding a phony show trial for rapist Templars and executing them publicly and torturously with magic, which incited a riot in Kirkwall. The repercussions in the high ranks of the Chantry had been bad enough that Leliana herself had to visit Kirkwall later for Justinia.

And yet, it seemed so minor and unimportant now, after everything else.

Leliana heaved a sigh. “We will never know what was possible. She did try at first to work through political means, but things worsened for them, and by the end, they both believed that war and schism were inevitable. I do not know. What I do know is that they were thinking of their child....”

“A child whom you knew,” Elissa said. Indeed, Leliana had known Hawke’s and Anders’ firstborn during his earliest years. She had, in fact, been the Chantry sister who named him into the faith in Lothering.

“Yes. They knew he was a mage, and then, by 9:36, they were expecting a second child. While Justinia saw reform as a long-term project, and had to think of the multitudes, they saw time running out for their son before the horrible Knight-Commander of Kirkwall would discover him.”

“That doesn’t mean that they were right,” Elissa objected. “Sympathetic, but not _right._ When the Blight came... when my family was slain... I wanted to look for Fergus. But it wouldn’t have been the right decision to focus on one person, even my own brother, while the Archdemon was menacing Ferelden.”

Leliana smiled, a hint of playfulness in this one at last. “And this is why you chose to protect the Inquisition from the risk of Corypheus stealing secrets from Wardens’ minds. It is who you are, Elissa. It has always been.”

Elissa was struck silent as she realized the import of what she had said.

“After war broke out and the northern Marches declared that Justinia was an ‘anti-divine,’ I became _very_ angry with her—with both of them. They had not acted only for their children, of course; the situation in Kirkwall was very bad before they killed the Knight-Commander. They were sure that she was planning to commit regicide, which I _do_ believe. But although I understood their reasons, some seemed selfish to me, and arrogant—indicative of their lack of faith in Justinia, and their conviction that they could do better.”

Elissa considered that. It was no secret to her that Leliana had been furious with Caitlyn Hawke after the mage Viscountess and her consort had incited war in 9:37. She had not even written to Hawke again until the mage-Templar war was nearing its end and Justinia meant to broker a Conclave to reunite the defeated reactionary schismatics who had opposed change. Justinia had meant the world to Leliana, second only to Elissa herself, and Leliana had complained many a time during that war that Hawke and Anders had actually _hurt_ mages with their impatience. Lord Seeker Lambert had betrayed Justinia and joined the northern schism, obeying the orders of the rival “Divine Fidelia” to Annul the Circles of Dairsmuid and Tantervale in Dragon 9:40. It had ultimately led to the false Divine’s death, as Kirkwall led a successful siege of Tantervale in response, but there had been so much bloodshed, and Leliana had believed that it would have been better if the Viscountess had trusted in Justinia.

Elissa wondered if she still believed that. She was speaking in past tense.

“And then Justinia was killed horribly by a creature that Caitlyn herself unknowingly set loose,” Leliana continued, reflecting. “I was livid with her for a long time. And then when you were so silent, even after you explained why....” She sighed yet again.

“Did you... did you think you saw a pattern of friends and past lovers hurting you? Marjolaine, Caitlyn, and....” _And me,_ she finished silently.

Leliana hesitated for a moment before responding. “I did think that,” she confessed. “I did not realize at the time what it implied that I thought so.”

“What do you mean? What did it imply?”

Leliana gathered her thoughts once more. “I was angry with Caitlyn because she and Anders started a war in part to protect their children. But I was even angrier with you for _not_ getting involved in the war against Corypheus, even though you did act for the greater good. I was inconsistent.”

Elissa tried to work out Leliana’s meaning. “Then....” She trailed off, unable to follow.

Leliana gazed sadly at her. “That anger was my own darkness all along, Elissa. That is what it implies. It was me. It was _always_ me. I was pulled in two directions, duty to Justinia and then the Inquisition, and the desire of my heart to be with you. I _resented_ the fact that I could not be ‘selfish’ as I believed my friends were. I worked diligently to do Justinia’s will, only to see it come to naught, so I convinced myself that Caitlyn Hawke had blithely ignited a war to protect her own family and rule, not because she felt she had no choice anymore. I saw Max Trevelyan falling for the son of a Tevinter magister and taking him into his confidence, sharing the Inquisition’s deepest secrets with someone who honored the Black Divine, while _my_ lover was being dutiful and scrupulous to withhold communication from me for the sake of protecting secrets from Corypheus.”

Understanding dawned across Elissa’s face, and her heart went out to Leliana—along with a miserable grief for what she was sure she had lost now. “Leliana,” she exclaimed, “I didn’t know—I didn’t know you were going through all this. If I had....” She trailed off sadly; what was the point in engaging in retrospection now? It was done, and the consequences were final.

“I was not angry at you for your decision, exactly. I was angry because it seemed that others around me did not have to abide by such considerations, and yet things worked out for them, while _my_ world had fallen to pieces and my faith was shaken to its core. If love and success could come to Hawke and Trevelyan, despite what I saw as selfishness in their thinking, while our dutifulness was rewarded with estrangement, where was the Maker’s hand?”

“Leliana....” Elissa wanted more than anything to reach out and embrace her, comfort her as she had done for so long... but those holy robes acted as the armor she had perceived them to be earlier.

Leliana continued relentlessly. “If Justinia’s work could be rewarded with war, schism, and her own murder, where was the Maker’s hand? The schism was devastating to her, Elissa. The Chantry was torn apart because of a great reform project that _she_ wanted to do. Through me, she worked with Hawke, but it ended in war. And then she was murdered in a violent ritual when she tried to make peace. Was the Maker loving as I always thought Him to be, or were the ones who believed in a rigid Maker who turned His gaze from us right all along? _Was_ there a Maker at all? I was doubting everything.”

Elissa gaped at her, astonished at this confession. No wonder Leliana had wanted this conversation to be absolutely private, conducted in a secret room. To hear the Divine herself express such a sentiment, even if, as it seemed, Leliana had recovered some of her lost faith.... It would have been devastating to her legitimacy for anyone else to have heard this.

Elissa tried to clear her thoughts. “You... speak as though things have changed for you,” she ventured, “and of course, you accepted the holy office... I can’t imagine that you would have done that if....”

“Yes,” Leliana said, her voice soft and gentle again now, “things changed for me.” She gazed past Elissa for a moment before smiling at her once more and moving imperceptibly closer on the couch. “I saw... the Inquisitor found some letters for me that Justinia wrote. She regretted using me as a tool, as she saw it. She did not want me to embrace my darkness. It helped me to see... a lot of things... with clearer eyes. But more than that, it made me remember how I had felt in Dragon 9:30.”

“The vision?”

“The vision... and the Temple of Sacred Ashes. The power of Andraste.”

Elissa felt bad about what she was about to say, but her practical side left her with no choice but to say it. “But the Temple was destroyed. I would have thought it would be a tarnished memory now.”

“The Temple was destroyed, but... I do not know if you had heard... but the Sacred Ashes were missing before the Conclave.”

“I had heard... vaguely... of their disappearance,” she said. “I assumed that fortune-hunters had raided the place, I suppose. It was depressing to dwell too heavily upon it.”

Leliana smiled a genuine smile now. “They had not. Secretly Justinia brought the ashes to the Grand Cathedral and kept them in a vault in uttermost security and secrecy, for the very reason that fortune-hunters would seek them out and Our Lady’s remains would be lost forever. I only learned it myself when I took up the high seat. She had left a note for me and Cassandra in code, written in invisible ink.” She leaned forward, taking Elissa’s hands in her own. “I have seen them again. I have felt their power again. And I remembered that day and what it meant. I know that I believe in love and that the Maker does not oppress it when it is pure and good. I was privately wishing that He would _punish_ Caitlyn and Trevelyan for their acts of love, because I believed that I was being denied it myself.”

Elissa protested this at once. “You weren’t,” she said feelingly. “I kept to myself—I kept the Wardens from the Inquisition—because of the war, yes, but also because I didn’t want to harm _you._ Corypheus had _murdered_ Justinia with the assistance of Grey Wardens, and the least I could do was not interfere with your efforts to end him. It sounds absurd and trite, I know, and I was mistaken... I should have thought more of what _you_ needed instead of assuming I knew best... but one reason why I did what I did was because I loved you and wanted to protect you.”

As soon as she spoke the words, a part of Elissa wished that she could take them back. What good did it do to tell Leliana _now_ that she loved her? The Divine was celibate. This would only make Leliana uncomfortable now. And yet... the other part of Elissa was glad that she had said it.

Leliana’s eyebrows knitted in thought, and she fell silent. It was only for a few seconds, but it was long enough to greatly increase Elissa’s discomfort. _I knew it,_ she thought in a flash. _She would rather not have heard that now. But I won’t pretend I didn’t say it. I’ve said it, so it’s best to acknowledge it._

Before she lost her nerve, she spoke again, regret and bitterness in her words. “During the Blight, the Maker took everyone in my family from me except Fergus,” she said, her gaze cast down, “and I believed for a long time that He had taken my brother too. Now He has taken you from me... in a different way, thankfully, but taken you all the same.” Courageously she raised her gaze to Leliana’s face as the latter woman stared back at her with wide eyes. “I know it was my own doing. Whether I was justified or not, I wasn’t there for you during a time of need, and this is the consequence of it—you found solace in the Maker and now... now you’re....” She sighed heavily. “I _do_ love you and I couldn’t let you go back to Val Royeaux without telling you that. I just... wanted you to know, even though it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Leliana continued to study her, though compassion and playfulness were creeping back into her face. Only a few seconds elapsed, but to both women, it felt like an eternity. Then she spoke.

“It _does_ matter.”

Elissa muffled a sob. “Love always matters, yes,” she said, “but what you are now—your duties, your vows—”

Leliana reached forward, embracing Elissa in a gentle hug. She squeezed her before drawing back and gazing at her gray-blue eyes, joy in her own. “I am the leader of the Chantry,” she said, “and that means that I can set doctrine.” She gazed resolutely at the Grey Warden. “Andraste herself knew the love of a mortal... for a time.”

“Who betrayed her as she fought the ancient magisters,” Elissa objected, unsure why she was saying this. She didn’t mean to compare herself to Maferath the Betrayer, but a part of her still felt that her conduct in the war against Corypheus was a betrayal. And there were other considerations too. Her heart was thumping rapidly now as her quick mind worked out what Leliana apparently meant to do. Hope was blooming in her like a rose, and yet, it seemed impossible anyway. Leliana _was_ the leader of the Chantry, but there were opponents to any doctrinal change. Maker knew _she_ should know that, having been at Justinia’s side through a war over one such change.

“You are not Maferath, Elissa,” Leliana said pointedly, very well aware of what her lover was thinking. Elissa managed a sheepish chuckle; after eleven years, they knew each other very well indeed.

“And Andraste herself did _not_ betray him. She was his wife throughout her campaign against the Imperium. Their affections did not matter to the Maker, did not make her unsuitable in His eyes for His mission.” Leliana’s gaze was fierce and determined as she continued to embrace Elissa. “The Chantry itself made this rule later to prevent dynastic priesthood. I am going to change this doctrine, Elissa, and not just for myself, but for all who take vows. If the Maker did not want His servants to know physical love, He would not have chosen Andraste. And I am asking you to be by my side as I do this.”

Elissa gaped. Her hopes were soaring, but so were her fears. “You will have opposition,” she ventured.

“Of course I will. It does not frighten me.” Her eyes twinkled. “Where is the bold Grey Warden who faced down the Archdemon as Denerim burned?”

Elissa finally laughed, brought up short by that. “I suppose traditional old priests aren’t nearly as fearsome as a Tainted Old God of Tevinter.” She returned Leliana’s embrace at last, feeling warmth rush over her. “I will miss Ferelden... but I’ve been Warden-Commander for ten years. That is long enough. Others can take over. Ellandrion can come... even Amethyne, if she wants....” She swallowed. “I love Ferelden, but I love you more.”

“You have always thought of others and acted accordingly, no matter the cost to yourself,” Leliana said gently.

_That’s not actually true,_ Elissa thought, remembering her dark night of the soul in Redcliffe the night before they marched for Denerim to defeat the Blight. She had noticed Leliana becoming sadder and darker as the fateful event approached. She had not yet known at the time that it was because Leliana believed she had caused the deaths of an entire family in Lothering—the Hawke family—for nothing, but Elissa herself had become rather cynical and embittered after her campaign against the Blight. While a Blight was threatening her country, everyone seemed to be engaging in games about who ruled their own little fiefdoms—a Dalish clan, an underground kingdom, a tower, the throne in the Landsmeet chamber. Even the other Grey Wardens hadn’t come to help, save for one. That night, Elissa had heard of the Grey Warden sacrifice, heard of a loophole around it, and she had been darkly determined that she would not, under any circumstances, risk annihilation for the sake of ingrates and fools. That hadn’t been the only reason—she had also not wanted to risk leaving the country devoid of Wardens except for the one who then sat on the throne—but it had been her principal consideration. Leliana had been her shining star in the midst of that darkness, but it had seemed that Leliana was also becoming darkened as the Blight drew to a close.

“I haven’t always,” she confessed to Leliana. Leliana tightened her grip around Elissa’s shoulders, comforting her enough to continue speaking. “There were occasions....”

Leliana’s musical laugh sounded next to Elissa’s left ear. “I suppose no one is  _always_ a certain way. And perhaps this is a time when you should think of yourself.”

Elissa gently disentangled herself from Leliana’s embrace and smiled at her. “It feels inappropriate to say I’m doing  _this_ for selfish reasons. You said that you were going to change doctrine. That isn’t just for me....”

Leliana laughed more loudly this time and gazed at her lover, deeply amused. “And I would do that no matter! Is  _that_ the real reason you want to come back with me? Is it truly?” She smirked.

Heat crept across Elissa’s cheeks as she chuckled sheepishly. “It’s not.”

“I thought not.” She paused for a moment before lunging forward, her headdress falling off, red hair popping out. She suddenly did not look remote and lofty, Divine Victoria, but instead looked like— _like Leliana,_ Elissa thought.

And with that, the doubts, fears, and hesitation vanished, subsumed beneath a warm joy that overtook her entire body. Of _course_ Leliana was going to right a wrong, no matter what obstacles she faced. She would do it, and she would triumph as she always had—as _they_ always had together. When had Leliana ever meekly accepted anything that she deemed wrong when she had the power to change it? Elissa met her lover halfway, their lips crashing together. Leliana tasted like cinnamon and smelled like Andraste’s Grace, her favorite flower. Elissa hadn’t felt this for the greater part of a year, and she devoured her lover like a starving woman.

A little moan escaped Leliana’s cute bow-shaped mouth, and with that, Elissa threaded her fingers through Leliana’s locks as they fell into each other. She had always loved her hair color, the color of autumnal leaves and pumpkins, and Leliana had taken to wearing it longer than she had during the earlier years. Leliana was careful not to muss Elissa’s braids, but the sides of her neck next to her jaw and the sensitive skin behind her ears were also very sensual places for her, and Leliana knew this. Her skillful fingers caressed these places as a positively wicked smile formed on her face.

Elissa moved to pull Leliana’s body against her own, feeling the other woman’s soft bosom against her own armored one. Although they were both very capable fighters, Elissa had always had the more sinewy, muscular form of the two due to her tendency to fight in melee with her two daggers, Fang and Claw. She loved the contrast with Leliana’s comparative softness, and she loved how Leliana became putty in her hands during these occasions, moaning, letting her do exactly as she liked—as they _both_ liked—

To her dismay, Leliana suddenly pulled away just as Elissa’s hands had found their way to the neckline of Leliana’s priestly garb. “Oh,” she groaned in complaint, “we mustn’t. Not here.”

Elissa was feeling playful now, the anxieties and sorrows of the day gone. That too was confirmation to her that all was well; no one could make her feel better, or more positive and hopeful, than Leliana. “You were _just_ speaking of what you meant to change,” she teased.

Leliana drew herself up, smirking, as she smoothed her hair and reached for her headpiece. “And so I do. But just beyond two doorways is the sanctuary of a house of the Maker.”

“In the Grand Cathedral....”

“There are living quarters.” She rose to her feet beside her lover.

“We have to wait until you’re in Val Royeaux?” Elissa groused. “I heard that while you were here, you would be staying in Bann Delilah’s manor. Why don’t you pay an official visit to Vigil’s Keep as well? Not all the Wardens are Andrastian, but it would be appropriate enough to meet those who are, after the war....” She smiled slyly at her. “And my quarters there are very nice indeed. People will talk, but if you are going to make the change anyway, why does that matter?”

Leliana beamed. “That’s the Elissa I know and love.”

* * *

_The Warden-Commander’s quarters at Vigil’s Keep._

Leliana had shed her holy vestments when she took a bath and had slipped into a soft, elegant robe that belted at the waist—a robe of embroidered leaf-green silk, trimmed with lace. Elissa smiled as she approached. Leliana always liked finery and ultra-feminine styles, except when she wore armor or spy cloaks. It was good to know that some things never changed. Despite her love of Leliana in such clothes, she had never been one for wearing frippery herself, and even now was lounging in her bed, behind the heavy silver-and-blue drapes, in naught but her smallclothes. She didn’t have fancy nightclothes and just bundled up in Highever weave and furs when it was cold and the fire was insufficient. But that was not tonight.

“Come here,” she said, her voice almost a growl. She peered behind the heavy drape and gazed coyly at Leliana, who looked, in this moment, like... a woman, just a woman. _She is that for me,_ Elissa thought in satisfaction as her lover approached with equal coyness. _For no one else, but she is for me._

_I suppose I’m the Hero of the Blight to most of Thedas,_ she realized with a start as Leliana drew near,  _but to her, I am just a woman too._

Leliana reached the bed and sat on it daintily, perched in an almost  _too_ ladylike way, her legs crossed, one foot on the floor, her robe wrapped around her, revealing nothing. She turned her gaze on her lover with a lofty smile. It was a tease, and one that Elissa knew very well indeed. She also knew very well indeed what Leliana wanted her to do when she did it—and with a lunge, the flex of a toned arm muscle, she pulled Leliana fully onto the bed, shoving her onto her back.

The former bard smiled and laughed musically as the lithe Warden-Commander crawled over her, toned abdominal muscles visible and gleaming in the light of the runed lamps as she moved. Her hair was down her back in ripples from the braids that it had been in all day, making her look curiously vulnerable—but Leliana knew very well how misleading  _that_ was. She waited a moment for her lover to find her position, to straddle her with the athleticism of the fearsome fighter that she was, and to reach down with those toned arms for her pretty green robe as it lay draped loosely on her shoulders.

Leliana rose from her back slightly to let Elissa remove the garment, a gentleness in the latter’s hands that would surprise anyone who did not know her as well as Leliana did. Elissa was not one to tear roughly at clothing or be heedless of her lover’s comfort. She drew the robe off Leliana’s arms, gently untying the silk sash around her waist, and slid it out from behind her, noting the sensual play of silk against smooth, clean skin. Her eyes gleamed, Leliana noted with delight—and then Elissa descended upon her.

Her skin  _was_ smooth, Elissa thought, as she planted kisses down Leliana’s body. Smooth and silky clean, and the scent of Andraste’s Grace was even stronger now. Leliana must still use soap perfumed with the fragrance. Elissa had made a point of being clean and fresh for her as well, but she did not use special scented soaps.  _I would do it if she ever wanted me to,_ she thought, feeling very giving as she pinched Leliana’s left nipple between her lips, eliciting a cry of pleasure.

“It has been so long,” the former bard finally gasped, breathing heavily. “We have not been together since last year—please—I need—”

“I know what you need,” Elissa replied throatily. She let her right hand trail lightly down Leliana’s side, pausing briefly on her hips, before continuing to the sensitive core between her legs. She was now curled over her lover, muscles tensed and strong, holding herself in place, as she slid two lithe fingers through Leliana’s folds, and all the while not drawing away from the little pink rosebuds to which she ministered with her mouth, one after the other. She braced herself with her left hand on Leliana’s hip, and her right hand grew slick with her partner’s juice as she moved her fingers back and forth, in time with the movements of her mouth—not penetrating her, not even spending any time specifically on her most sensitive spot, just teasing relentlessly. Leliana began to tremble and twitch, her clever gift for words reduced to moans, cries, and feminine gasps.

It was rapidly driving Elissa wild too. She was still in her smalls, and she felt herself growing very wet indeed at what she was doing to Leliana, but she knew that she could not let her actually climax this soon. As she slowed her pace and prepared to draw back, to reposition herself, her lover moaned in complaint. Elissa felt a pang for that, but only briefly. Her displeasure would not last long, that was for sure.

Leliana took heaving breaths as Elissa climbed off her, withdrawing her hand. Her eyelids fluttered closed for a moment, and when she opened them, her eyes widened in lust. Elissa was licking her fingers clean, gazing pointedly at Leliana, as she unhooked her breastband with her left hand.  _One hand was just as good as the other for the dual-wielding rogue...._

The sight of her lover licking her fingers clean of  _her_ feminine juices imbued Leliana with the strength that she had been lacking entirely as Elissa pleasured her. She propped herself up on her elbows and gazed at Elissa, not saying a word.

She did not need to. They had been together for a decade, and they knew how this went. Elissa drew her right index finger from her mouth with a dirty flourish, eyed Leliana, and—with a grin—lay down right beside her, one leg draped over her. Leliana’s hands went straight for Elissa’s remaining smalls, but not to take them off. Instead she slid one hand inside, through Elissa’s curls, quickly finding her own fingers covered in her lover’s desire.

She was so wet and slippery that it was hard  _not_ to enter her—and yet, Elissa was the one surprised this time when Leliana slid two fingers, then three, into her, curling them inside her body quickly, hitting the spot in her that sent waves of shocking pleasure rippling outward—but left her still wanting more, not at all satisfied yet.

She gasped, gazing at Leliana as the former bard’s lips curled into an infuriatingly teasing smirk. Leliana moved forward to kiss her, sliding her fingers back and forth all the while as they deepened the kiss and pressed against each other, side by side.

“It’s been... _too_ long,” Elissa gasped as Leliana continued her motions. The thin fabric of her smalls was thoroughly soaked. “We’re not going to be able to make it last....”

“Oh yes we will.”

With that, Leliana withdrew her hand from Elissa’s core  _and_ her smalls, ending the pleasurable, rhythmic friction and leaving her gaping in dismay at her red-haired lover, well aware that Leliana had just paid her back for what she had done to her. But that did not much matter. They had not  _wanted_ it to be over this soon, anyway.

Gasping, breathing heavily, Elissa hurried herself out of her smalls. Leliana gazed back at her, willing and eager, her legs easing open oh so slightly in anticipation. Elissa crawled down the bed again, settling between her legs, which she quickly lifted to her shoulders as she bent down and descended upon her lover.

Despite the fact that Elissa had not been giving pleasure to Leliana over the past few minutes, she was just as wet as she had been before. Elissa realized that it was because Leliana had  _very_ much enjoyed returning the favor, and that had done the job too. She took a breath before ghosting her mouth and fingertips against Leliana’s dripping core, then—when her lover gasped again with that musical, girlish cry of hers—finally holding back nothing at all.

_This_ was divine, Elissa thought in wicked glee as she punctuated another deliciously torturous hook of her fingers inside Leliana with a lick of her sensitive pearl.  _Divine love, indeed._

Leliana began to come apart at this, crying out. Her legs began to shake, which Elissa felt intimately as pressure on her shoulders. She bent her left arm to hold one, at least, in place, tightening her grip on her lover’s thigh as Leliana bucked and trembled more. She was so, so close—

_“Oh!”_ she cried out, her legs suddenly going limp, her trembles unfocused and chaotic and weaker by the second. Elissa ghosted her nose against her core again, feeling her trembles and the heat of her body, as it began to dawn on her that this deed had excited  _her_ quite a lot... she hoped that Leliana would be able to do something....

The growing lust and need within her had almost reached its boiling point by the time that Leliana heaved a last gasping breath and regained command of herself.

“Your turn,” she said, her voice still weak and husky, but there was determination in it that her lover recognized very well.

Elissa was ready. She climbed lithely over Leliana and lay on her back, legs splayed wide, gazing at her lover as she got to her knees and crawled down the bed. “Give me your blessing,” she said daringly.

Leliana was shocked for a fraction of a second, but her gaze quickly turned back to that familiar smirk. “Just for that, I  _shall._ What a change  _this_ is from the sad, uncertain woman in Amaranthine’s Chantry.”

“I hope you’re not complaining.”

“Not in the least.”

Perhaps it was the faint hint of sacrilege that provoked Leliana; perhaps it was simply that Leliana was glad to see her lover back to her old self, but Elissa was not prepared for what followed. Leliana descended upon her with the determination and physical skill of the young archer with whom Elissa had first fallen in love during the Blight. She was the stronger of the two, but she was helpless as Leliana’s talented hands trailed teasingly down her sides, between her thighs, ending with a soft but shockingly erotic touch in her most sensitive spot.

Leliana gazed at her with large eyes, pupils wide and dark, that infuriating bow-shaped mouth of hers in a coy little pout. Then she lowered her lips to Elissa’s core just as she slipped her fingers inside and resumed the movements that she had stopped not too long ago.

Elissa was a renowned fighter, nimble and quick. No one caught her by surprise, just as no one saw her helpless and defeated. No one except Leliana. In this moment, as the former bard’s tongue and nimble fingers teased and tormented her, lapping her up, darting from sensitive spot to sensitive spot, stroking her hooded clitoris every now and then but not quite consistently enough to end this—in this moment, Elissa felt utterly at her lover’s mercy.

At last, as her heated skin was beginning to develop tiny beads of sweat, and her gasps were becoming ragged, Leliana decided that it was time. She gave Elissa a series of tender strokes with her tongue and fingertips, then hooked her fingers inside her body as she drew her pearl into her mouth with a gentle suction.

A strangled gasp escaped Elissa. She jerked and twitched, unable to still her movements, as the waves poured over her and sparks popped behind her eyes.

When at last she was able to focus on something, she immediately looked down her body and met Leliana’s gaze, tender, teasing, and loving. A happy, contented smile formed on Leliana’s face.

At some point—neither of them knew how much time had elapsed before they were able to move again, and neither cared—Leliana crawled up the bed to settle next to her lover, cuddling against her. They were still naked, but now, they just wanted to enjoy the closeness and familiar intimacy of skin against skin. Elissa draped an arm around her, feeling her snuggle against her bosom as they prepared to go to sleep in each other’s arms for the first time in a year.

“I want you for more than a lover,” Leliana murmured. “I intend to allow _much_ more than for priests and initiates merely to have romance in their lives. They will be able to marry—and it will not matter whether they seek to marry men or women. After all, why should it?” She propped herself on one elbow and gazed tenderly at Elissa. “For ten years we were as constant as any husband and wife. Will you... make it official with me at last?”

Elissa drew her breath sharply. For all her life, she had never thought  _that_ possible for her—not even after she met Leliana. “Marriage” was something she had dreaded for a brief time in her youth, as a noble girl who probably would not inherit the title of Highever herself—who would have to make her way in the world some other way—and who knew she was exclusively attracted to her own sex. Before she realized that her parents had already known, and had no intention of forcing a man upon her, she had been terrified of the idea of “marriage.” Even after that, even after she had become a Grey Warden and met her love, she had thought that “marriage” just was not for people like her.

Now, her amazing partner sought to change that too.

Elissa did not challenge her or voice any concerns this time. The doubt and fear were long gone. Why not make this change too? Why  _not_ claim this ring for herself, for that matter? If the victorious Divine and the Hero of the Blight could not have this,  _why_ couldn’t they? Who dared tell  _them_ what to do? But of course they could, and they could open the doors for others by their example. Elissa stifled a chuckle as she realized that she was seeking an altruistic rationale for a decision once more. Leliana was right; this was what she did.  _It is for us and for others,_ she thought, finding happiness in that.  _It is not one or the other. It’s both._

“I will,” she whispered. She cuddled close, wrapping her muscled arms around Leliana. “I will. I never want to be without you for as long as we live.”

* * *

_The vaults of the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaux._

The women stood in front of a flaming brazier, the only source of light in this deep, stone-walled place. A marble statue of Andraste loomed behind the brazier, but unlike many such statues, this one was not martial or menacing. Instead, this statue depicted the Prophet with her hands raised in benediction and a smile on her face as she heard the voice of the Maker for the first time. It was an unusual artwork in a world of armored Andrastes with swords, shields, and angry scowls on their faces, but Leliana had already decided that the world needed more like it.

In front of the two women rested a tall urn, filled with the most sacred substance in all of Thedas—the Ashes of Andraste, brought to this chamber by the previous Divine to safeguard them. Elissa knew she would always wonder if Justinia had merely been wise and careful, or had had a premonition about the despoiling of that chamber like Leliana’s vision of the Blight. If the latter, she had gone back to Haven despite Elissa’s own warning against holding the Conclave. Had she known on some level? Had the Maker wanted her to sacrifice herself so that someone could finally destroy Corypheus, who had brought the Blight to the world, and so that the Chantry could be shaken to its core and remade into a force for charity and benevolence at last? They would never know. But whatever had compelled Justinia, she had saved the Ashes.

_“What priest can marry the Divine?” Elissa asked. “Even those who agree with you—with us—would say that they haven’t the authority.”_

_Leliana considered thoughtfully. “You are right,” she said. “But there is ‘someone’ in the Cathedral who does have the authority. Let_ her _bear witness.”_

Elissa glanced quickly at the urn, recalling the moment that she had touched the Ashes and felt their power for herself. She had also seen a vision of her deceased father, which still affected her, though she was to this day not sure if it was truly sent by him from beyond the Fade. The Gauntlet was destroyed; she would never know that either, but perhaps she was not meant to. Shortly after that, Leliana had at last opened up to her and they had begun their relationship. It was meaningful, poignant, and auspicious for them to take their vows to each other in front of the Ashes at last.

She held out her hand as Leliana drew forth a silk ribbon to tie around their wrists as a symbol of their bond. She began to speak, intoning the vows in a low yet musical voice, as the flames flickered behind them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Chapter 2 will be Anders and Caitlyn Hawke, the same ones from my long series, and it'll become clearer what exactly happened at AU Adamant, among other things.


	2. Justice and Mercy:  Caitlyn Hawke and Anders, I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience! I wanted my sendoff of Caitlyn and Anders to be a good one, and I hope this succeeded.
> 
> I should point out now that I've had to, um, adjust my plans for this fic. I meant for each couple to have one chapter. However, Caitlyn and Anders will get two, because this one grew beyond my expectations for it, and I realized that it already contains quite enough content to be a chapter unto itself. If I tried to cram in the reunion in Kirkwall after _this_ and also keep the whole thing around 10,000 words, I think that the reunion would suffer greatly for it. So it gets its own chapter.
> 
> **Warning:** This contains a flashback of sorts in which they did something rather dark. I doubt it’ll upset readers of _Spells of Power too_ much, given some of the things that happened in that fic, but... brace yourselves for a pretty cruel act anyway.
> 
> **Update July 25, 2020:** I've lightly edited this chapter after contemplating Max/Dorian and deciding that I wanted Dorian in the Fade beside Max for this event. I added him in and took out Varric, who does not have a compelling character or plot reason in this AU to be there, unlike all of the other companions except Bull (whom I wanted there for his brash boldness). Cole, Solas, Cass, and Blackwall all have to be there for various reasons, which are apparent in the text, but Varric's presence isn't story-necessary, and I decided belatedly I'd rather have Dorian there so that they can talk about this in the eventual Max/Dorian chapter of this little fic. There are no major changes to any of the action, just who are the six Inquisition companions.

_Dragon 9:41, the Fade beyond Adamant Fortress._

Anders stalked through the raw Fade, keeping his senses alert for attacks. He thought he was familiar with the Fade, the fuzzy, dream-blurred world of glows and shadows—but _this_ was different. This was as solid and firm, the edges as clean, as the material world, but it still felt malleable, which—in combination with the fact that the landforms were surreal and could not follow familiar physical laws—made the experience much more unsettling than it ever was in dreams. _I am here physically_ , Anders thought frequently as he followed Max Trevelyan and his companions. _It isn’t just my mind, my soul, visiting when my body sleeps. My body is in the Fade. How many can say that? Seven ancient magisters, one of whom I took part in killing and another of whom we’re fighting... and the nine of us_. —For also beside Trevelyan were Warden Loghain Mac Tir, sent by the Fereldan Wardens to explain the problems with the Orlesian command and guide the group, and six of his own companions. Anders had known two of them already, Varric and Cassandra—but Varric was back at Griffon Wing Keep.

Even his spirit had no insight to offer. Justice had never had a physical body until he was cast out by a pride demon and occupied Warden Kristoff’s corpse, through which he could not enter the Fade again, since dead men do not sleep. But even after he entered Anders’ body, his experience in the Fade was ever as it had been, because he saw through Anders’ disembodied vision in dreams. He had never been in the Fade with a material body either. This was as new to Justice as it was to anyone present.

_Even Cole,_ Anders thought wryly, stealing a quick glance at the strange, milk-pale young... man?... who was actually a Spirit of Compassion. He had never been human, never been possessed, never shared; he _was_ the spirit, strong and unique enough to manifest with the appearance of a human boy and even begin to think like a mortal, a bit. It was fascinating to Anders... and poignant. _I wonder if Justice could have managed that,_ he had thought occasionally, always with a pang. _He had a strong, unique personality too when he left the Fade. Helping me in the Circle, keeping me sane and wise to demons’ lures, when I was separated from Caitlyn and Mal, and then championing the pride demon’s captives, gave him a personality. I wonder if we really had to do... what we did._ It was far too late now, of course, and Justice had saved Anders’ own life and those of his loved ones many times by renewing Anders’ native magic quickly. But he would always wonder now that he had met Cole.

Back at Skyhold, he and Cole had not gotten on at all. Justice and Mercy often had _extremely_ different opinions of what should be done with malefactors that the Inquisition took prisoner, the Inquisitor usually being more merciful than vengeful with such. Further, Anders himself had almost come to blows with Cole after he had seen the spirit trying to give “compassionate” deaths to wounded patients who he, as a master Healer, did not believe were hopeless cases. Trevelyan had interceded on Anders’ side then, staying Cole’s dagger from the hearts of two soldiers with advanced blood poisoning. Anders had saved one, who had gone on to save slaves in the Wastes. The other had died a lingering, prolonged death in fevered delirium. Curiously, the mixed outcome had been the beginning of an armistice between them.

And now, walking the Fade beside the spirit that was, in many ways, the polar opposite of his own spirit companion, Anders realized that they were at last in accord about something: the demon responsible for this had to die.

Corypheus’s center of operations was Orlais, but Anders had felt the false Calling even as far from Orlesian territory as Kirkwall, and the Fereldan Wardens in Amaranthine and Soldier’s Peak had also felt it. Gwaren, Loghain’s base, was less affected, but he was the most senior Warden present there and he had felt the false Calling increasingly more intensely as he traveled to Skyhold. Even Blackwall—or Rainier, Anders supposed darkly, thinking of another case in which Justice was not quite satisfied—had felt it after he and Loghain had detected the man’s lie, his absence from the Taint, and had administered the Joining to him at Skyhold. A brand-new Warden felt the Calling.

It wasn’t supposed to have happened to them. Avernus, the old blood mage at Soldier’s Peak, had invented a potion that he claimed had prevented his own Calling and should also prevent theirs. In Anders’ specific case, Justice had always been confident that his good, healing presence would also combat the worst effects of the Taint and prevent a Calling. And yet they had felt it. They had all assumed it was Corypheus’s doing, which Anders supposed it was, but the vast, powerful demon that controlled this part of the Fade—the demon that fed off mortals’ fears of the Blight—was actually the entity that Corypheus was using for his purpose. It had to be ended beyond any possible regeneration, reduced to ether and sent back to the stuff of the Fade. Otherwise it could continue to torment and deceive the Wardens. Of that the two spirits and two senior Grey Wardens were certain.

Anders just hoped that it would not play out as Caitlyn had apparently long dreamed it would.

* * *

_Three months earlier, Kirkwall._

“You _don’t have to go,”_ Viscountess Caitlyn Hawke said, emphasizing each word, emerald eyes wide and lips parted in dismay and pleading. She took his arms and stared into his eyes. “I gave them supplies. I gave up Varric’s counsel— _Varric!—_ so that he could help them. I sent Trevelyan’s niece to Skyhold at his personal request. I’ve cooperated with every inquiry about Corypheus. I even sent the mage army to them when they asked, though it exposed Kirkwall and Sebastian tried yet again to seize this city, like a robber targeting a cripple. What more do they _want_ from us? Why do _you_ have to go, Anders?”

Anders brought her close in an embrace, cradling her flame-red head against his chest. She was agitated, and as he reflected on her words, he realized that she had a point. During the war, in addition to ruling Kirkwall, she had been the commander of the Free Mages of Thedas, the army that had formed of the assorted apostates and former Circle mages who had declared their freedom. It was not _all_ the fighting mages, of course. Fidelia, the “Divine in Tantervale,” the leader of the traditionalist schism—who was none other than the fugitive traitor Elthina—had claimed the mages of Tantervale were conspiring with the “heretical” Rivaini Circle to take over the city with blood magic. She had ordered the Annulment of both Circles in Dragon 9:40, despite Rivain not being part of the schism, and Seeker Lambert, a traitor to the true Divine, had gleefully complied. It had devastated the Free Mages’ morale. Accusing Caitlyn of ignoring the northern mages’ plight, former Grand Enchanter Fiona had led a disgruntled unit northward to find survivors. They had, it turned out later, made common cause with the Venatori, but they troubled their erstwhile friends no more during the mages’ war. To avenge their fallen fellows and prevent further desertions, Caitlyn had no choice but to go north, to lay siege to Tantervale with Anders by her side and all the spells that they and their army could summon. The people had finally given up the false Divine themselves. Caitlyn and Anders were not proud anymore of what they did after that... but what people, what Thedas as a whole, _thought_ was that Elthina suffered a concussion when Tantervale’s people threw her at their besiegers’ feet and died in her sleep later. The war was effectively over then, the schism unable to settle on a new leader and Tantervale ready to sue for peace. All that had remained was to hammer out a new, fairer doctrine for the rights of mages that the rebels could live with under a reunited Chantry... _the purpose of the Divine Conclave at Haven,_ Anders thought bitterly.

Caitlyn still commanded the Free Mages, though, and when Max Trevelyan had asked for help closing the Breach, she had sent them to Haven. The situation had become more complicated when the compassionate Inquisitor, always trying to save people, still insisted on going to the Templar stronghold to tell them of their leaders’ plan to force them to take red lyrium. Some of the mages had returned to Kirkwall after he had brought back a force of ex-Templars. But they _had_ closed the Breach for the Inquisition, when it needed them most. Caitlyn had a point; the Inquisition had asked much already.

And yet. “Justice thinks that... because of Corypheus... one of us should go,” Anders said unhappily.

Caitlyn hissed under her breath. “Justice,” she said with a snarl. “If it’s true justice, it should be me. I’m the one who freed the monster. I’m the one who failed to kill him permanently. You weren’t even along for it. You were at Mother’s house with Mal when I went. Where is the justice in this?”

Anders caressed her face, his right hand gently trailing along her jaw as he gazed tenderly at her. “I wouldn’t have you go again,” he said quietly. “He will remember you—and hate you. I... I would try my best to take care of the city, if you truly insist....” He trailed off hesitantly, looking aside for a moment before forcing himself to face her again. “But I don’t think it would be for the best. I didn’t do a great job when you made me Regent in 9:35. And I’m a Grey Warden. I hear his horrible, hateful voice in my head. If the Inquisition hasn’t had any contact with senior Grey Wardens until very recently, I might have insight to offer them. I should be the one, love,” he said, embracing her again, though this time more loosely. “I’ll be all right. Varric is there too, and nothing has happened to him. I hate to say it, hate to think this way, but those with the Inquisitor’s own ear are better protected than common soldiers. And after all... I’m not going _alone.”_ He managed a wry smile at the allusion to his spirit.

She muffled a choked sob and looked away at once, unable to meet his eye. That told him that this was something else, something more than just ordinary fear for him. They had both put their lives in danger many a time. When they had gone to Tantervale, they had left their children with Caitlyn’s mother, uncle, and cousin, not positive that they would return home to them, uncertain if they would see Mal become a young man or witness Jo Beth’s first reading or first spell, if she turned out a mage like the rest of her immediate family. Risk had been part of Caitlyn’s and Anders’ lives ever since they had come to Kirkwall. _This_ fear was more than that.

“Darling?” he said gently, lifting her head to face him. “What’s wrong?”

She did not speak for a moment, tensed as if in agony. Then she looked into his amber eyes, and stark fear was in her own. “You know that I’ve had these... dreams. They’re rare, but they have been happening for years.”

“The bloody crown—”

“The _diadem of Kirkwall,”_ she insisted. “The diadem of Kirkwall on my head, dripping blood... a trail of bloody footprints behind me... and Anders, it happened, and _not_ just metaphorically.” She took a breath. “Dragon 9:36, the night of the Satinalia Massacre... there was so much blood in front of the Keep that I did, in fact, leave a trail of bloody footprints in the Keep when I returned. We did it again to Meredith. Then the war came.” She turned his face to look directly at her. “And there was more—a vast green rift in the sky.”

A chill shot down Anders’ back. He tightened his grip on her.

“The crown, the blood—all right. I first had the dream shortly after I had the ambition of being Viscountess, and I knew what it might mean to fight for mages, and I was afraid of that. If it were just the crown and the blood, it might just be the Fade showing my fears to me. But a green rift in the sky? Why would I dream of that?” She stared fiercely, piercingly at him. “And the very first time I had this dream was the night before I went with Carver and the others to the Warden fortress... _to find Corypheus.”_

Anders’ mouth opened slightly. His eyes widened, and another chill went down his back.

“It’s a possible future, Anders,” she insisted. “Nobody completely understands the Fade. It shows the past... the present... people’s wishes... and, I think, possible futures. That’s what this is. And the worst thing of all. As I walked, that breach overhead all the while, I came to a place where you were fighting... something. I don’t know what. A vast demon of some sort, I think. And it _killed_ you,” she burst out, pleading with him with her eyes. “You... or someone else, because the person fighting seemed to shift identity back and forth as I looked. I couldn’t tell who the... alternative... was. Maybe it was Loghain. Maybe Varric. Maybe Trevelyan, who apparently, if their claims are to be believed, _has_ to stay alive because only he can defeat Corypheus. Maker knows I couldn’t,” she muttered darkly. “And Anders... we both know what you would do if it actually came to that choice.”

Anders was staring at her, horrified, but he could not deny it.

“Please,” she begged, “don’t do this. Don’t go. I don’t want to lose Varric either, but... Varric is not my husband, my children’s father, my love. You left once before and I was alone for four years. Don’t leave me again. This time, you would _never_ come back. Let someone else do whatever this is.”

He held her, closing his eyes as he cradled her head, thinking hard. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps there was no point in his going to Skyhold. They would already have a senior Grey Warden in Loghain, and they had the mages who had chosen to remain with the Inquisition even after the Breach was sealed and Trevelyan had brought in the Templars from Therinfal Redoubt. He had not fought Corypheus himself, after all.

_But I did fight the Architect. Loghain remained at Vigil’s Keep, but I fought another of Corypheus’s kind._

He was going to hurt her when he said this, he knew. He hated and dreaded it. He wished it could be otherwise. But—he vowed to himself—he _would_ return to her. He would not leave her and their children alone.

“Before we got the family manor back, you also told me about a dream you had that Carver would die in the Deep Roads,” he began. “That one didn’t come to pass. We averted it. Nothing is set in stone, darling.”

Caitlyn was raising her gaze to his, realizing where he was going with this, as anguish and fury filled her face.

“Since we know this dream _could_ happen,” he said, desperation filling his face as the anger and despair increased in hers, “I’ll remember it if—when—the time comes. I’ll remember... and I’ll react accordingly....”

She wrenched free of his arms and glared at him. Her expression broke his heart. “You will leave your family, _knowing_ about this risk, because you think you have all that you need now to overcome it!” she snarled. “You don’t know what you’re facing! Even I didn’t see exactly what it was! You don’t know when it will come, or who will be with you—”

“I won’t go anywhere alone, then,” he said, “and I’ll insist that Trevelyan take a lot of people with him when he wants me along. You said it was big. It will require a lot of strong people to defeat it, in that case. I’ll be ready....”

At that, she broke, falling into the nearest chair, her head bent and her hands covering her face. “I wasn’t ready,” she said quietly. “When the moment came, I couldn’t refuse the crown and I couldn’t avoid the blood, because in both cases, it was the right thing to do. Or so I thought. I couldn’t stop it....”

He paused for a moment, contemplating, before saying as stoutly as he could, “You know better than I that we can’t make promises to come back, with the uncertainty of combat always hanging over... but I will _not_ sacrifice myself. I swear it.”

* * *

Throughout his time with the Inquisition, he had wondered when, or if, Caitlyn’s dream would come to pass. Perhaps it never would. The Breach that she had seen was closed now, after all. Perhaps in her dream, he was fighting a demon that would have escaped from the Breach if it hadn’t been closed, if she hadn’t sent the mage army to do it and Trevelyan’s Templars were also unable.

So he assured himself from Skyhold to Crestwood, to the familiar Storm Coast and the distant Western Approach. When he and Loghain called Blackwall out and Joined him, he felt relieved that the Inquisition now had another bona fide Grey Warden, imagining that perhaps Blackwall could take his place if the moment ever required it.

At Griffon Wing Keep in the Western Approach, the Inquisitor made plans to travel to Adamant to confront the problem at last. An uneasy feeling came over Anders then, the preternatural awareness that this was important. He urged the man to bring a large team with him, twice the size of his usual group. _Just in case. The demon Caitlyn saw may already be dead._ He could still make himself believe it as they cut down fellow Grey Wardens, deceived and manipulated into doing terrible things, but nonetheless Wardens.

As they tumbled from the ramparts into the rift that Trevelyan opened, he realized, at last, _this is it. The demon is in here._

* * *

_The Fade, present day._

Max Trevelyan claimed it was a spider, but to Anders, the demon was a vision of _himself,_ the brand of Tranquility burned on his forehead. Another demon followed it, this one a Tranquil Caitlyn. Tranquil Mal. Tranquil Jo Beth, even though the almost-five-year-old had not done magic yet. Then another swarm of demons came, these appearing as undead forms of his family.

_There’s no corpse of me,_ Anders thought as he defeated them, closing his eyes to the fact that they looked like his loved ones. They weren’t; it was an evil mockery, his fears taken form. _I guess I don’t fear my own death. But she fears it. The children fear it. And I don’t want to lose them, to go before I see them grow up, to not grow old with Caitlyn. I won’t let it happen._

They traveled onward, past several places where past memories and fears had been embedded in the Fade. Trevelyan wanted to give peace in as many of these cases as he could, though others were getting impatient to move on.

Anders felt a strange compulsion, which no one else in the group seemed to feel, as they passed a ghostly shore with a graveyard. He broke away from the rest of the group, momentarily forgetting that he should not be alone, and hurried toward it. He turned a corner in the maze of caves and pinnacles—and found himself staring at a room with a hole in the wall that was warded by a glassy, shiny barrier.

A woman sat within, curled into herself. Her hair was silver, her skin blotchy, her body emaciated. She could not see the barrier before her. It was apparent to Anders that to her, it appeared as a solid wall. The bloody, angry undead bodies of children in mage robes surrounded her, shambling and eyeing her with strange glowing eyes, as she stared defeatedly at them.

Why was he being shown this? Was this the Circle Tower at Kinloch Hold? It looked like a distorted Fade version of it, to be sure....

Suddenly, Anders realized what he was seeing.

* * *

_Dragon 9:40, the gates of Tantervale._

Joffrey Orrick, Chancellor of Tantervale, threw Elthina, Divine Fidelia in Tantervale, before them. Behind him, his city lay broken and burned, the result of a siege of fireballs, lightning storms, earthquakes, explosive blasts, and rocks cast by three hundred mages outside their walls.

“You have been hurting my people,” the man spat at Anders and Caitlyn. “They’re the ones who suffered. What do they care about which Chantry they belong to? Though personally, I see exactly why she wanted to keep your sort locked up, since this is what you can do to cities....”

“It’s war,” Caitlyn said shortly. “Non-mages would have besieged you with catapulted boulders, flaming projectiles, and bombs. Does it matter if the siege weapons come from a mage’s spell or a non-mage’s war engine?” She scowled. “We mages do not _want_ to make war on innocents. We just want to live normal lives. But we will fight if we are forced to.” She paused, regarding him and then Elthina. “We will entertain terms of your surrender—and _her_ punishment is in _our_ hands, since her crime was against mages.”

Later, they went to see Elthina in her cell—quite a fall from her position as the schism’s declared Divine. She was defiant, the false front of moderation and compromise that she had presented years ago in Kirkwall long gone now. Perhaps she knew it was futile to feign it after ordering the slaughter of two Circles, nearly a hundred mages.

Anders exchanged a dark, hard look with Caitlyn. This was his idea, but they had agreed to it. They nodded briefly before joining hands and casting a spell to send themselves and Elthina into the Fade—a specific place in the Fade.

A crumbling, burning hall forty feet across and twenty feet tall stood around them, blood and bodies of children on the floor, tables with plates of rotting food in the center, locked bookcases on the wall. The shelves were perpetually aflame, never reduced to ash. Glimmering barriers blocked each door. The ceiling was broken and mostly gone, but the walls were warded against escape. In the yellow sky, the Black City floated closer than ever—but still unreachable.

“This is a place I found once,” Anders said, his voice deliberately casual. “I don’t know who made it. From what I heard from the Warden-Commander, I would guess that demons created it when the Fereldan Circle was fallen. If so, the demon that made it is long dead... but the place itself remains, as you see.”

Elthina glared back at them silently.

“And here you will stay,” Caitlyn said, her voice becoming angry and dark. In the corners, the dead burning bodies of children began to rise, ever so slowly. “You had a hundred innocent mages slaughtered in their rooms because you were afraid that they would overthrow you. You will spend the rest of your days with _these.”_ The mages, every one of them dressed in burned, bloodied rags, wounds covering their faces, approached—but did not threaten.

“And you won’t be able to leave,” Anders continued. In that moment, his eyes blazed bright blue, and veilfire crackled over his skin as Justice took him over. “I am not the only Spirit of Justice,” he boomed. “Another one, lesser than I but still strong, guards an exit to this room.” On one side, behind one shining barrier, a greenish-white spirit stood sentry, armed as a noble knight in silverite and bearing a longsword and shield. “The other exit is guarded by a Spirit of Vengeance. It is interesting to look upon it and see its form in the Fade. Although I am sometimes Vengeance, I never knew what it looked like.” Behind the other barrier, another warrior spirit appeared, armored in black dragonbone with cruelly sharp extensions on the gauntlets and pauldrons, bearing a morningstar and jagged bloodletting daggers.

“You are welcome to _try_ to get past them,” Caitlyn said with a cruel smile.

Elthina, to her credit, managed to snarl her defiance. “The mages _were_ planning to overthrow me with blood magic,” she spat.

“The children, too?” Caitlyn said pointedly. When Elthina did not respond, she continued. “And no one can ever prove that now, since you had them all killed and their towers burned and sacked. Rather like _this_ tower.”

She drew herself up proudly, still wearing her holy robes. That was how she saw herself, even in the Fade, so it was how she appeared. “It hardly matters. In the real world, I sleep. When my mortal body dies of thirst and starvation, then I will leave this place and go to the Maker’s side.”

“No you won’t,” Anders, or Justice, said. “The souls of mortals have been trapped in the Fade by spirits before, and that is what will happen to you. You will stay here until these spirits decide you have paid the price for what you did. And after that... perhaps you’ll go to the Maker. Perhaps you’ll go to the Void.”

* * *

_Present day._

“Elthina,” Anders whispered, staring through the barrier at the emaciated woman. Her Divine robes were rags now, and hope had left her eyes. The spirits of Justice and Vengeance still guarded the two visible doorways.

“You did this. You hurt her.”

Anders whirled around to find himself facing Cole, who was staring at him in disapproval.

“You are not just. You are cruel,” the Spirit of Compassion charged him.

“No,” he protested, defending himself and Caitlyn. “Caitlyn and I are blamed for the mages’ war, but she contributed too. She hurt people too....”

“She has suffered for it. You should let her go.”

Anders searched for a reason. “The spirits guarding her haven’t let her go.”

Solas, the elven apostate who seemed to be close to Cole, then appeared beside him. He frowned. “They serve your spirit. The spirits who appear as those children serve _them_. They are not mages, and you know that. You have forced spirits to serve your need for vengeance. You should let them _all_ go.”

_I don’t want to. She ordered the Annulment of two Circles. She started the war too. She oversaw Kirkwall’s Circle for years as cruelty and rape occurred. She committed treason against Caitlyn’s predecessor. A year trapped in the Fade is hardly anything. Prisoners stay in cells for decades sometimes... and mages used to. I was locked in solitary confinement for a year...._

As the thought crossed his mind, he suddenly realized that Solas was right.

“She alone must face her deeds in life,” intoned the voice of the being that appeared as Divine Justinia. Anders was startled when he realized how much company he now had. “You cannot undo what she has done. She is dead to the mortal world for a year, her body burned, her war at an end and her cause defeated. What you do if you keep her here harms _yourself_ now, yourself and the spirits who follow your companion. Let the Maker judge her now.”

Anders was startled that the Divine, if indeed this were she, would be so forgiving toward the figure who had been her rival, the leader of the schism, in life. _Perhaps she is right,_ he thought uncomfortably. _Perhaps they all are._

Steeling himself, Anders took down the barrier, revealing an opening in the room that had been hidden to Elthina before. The ragged figure rose.

“Your work here is finished,” he said in the tones of Justice as the spirit crackled over his body. The guardian spirits and the child-spirits faced him, nodded, and drifted away through the doors, to go where they would.

Elthina faced him and Justinia, staring at one of her killers and her rival in life with hollow eyes. “Have I...” she began to say, her voice cracked.

“The damage is not permanent. The world will recover—if _these_ people succeed at their task. Go,” said Justinia quietly.

Anders, Solas, Cole, and the spirit watched as Elthina shivered, then faded away in a glimmer of light.

“It is done,” said the Justinia-spirit. “We must continue.”

* * *

At last, he understood. As he faced the vast, bloated, reeking Nightmare demon, an arachnid monstrosity unlike even the vilest giant spiders in caves, he realized that this was it. This was the moment in Caitlyn’s dreams.

The team was tired from defeating its Aspect, a lesser manifestation of a mere part of the accursed thing. The demon itself seemed impossibly powerful and strong. The entity that had been Justinia was gone.

“The rift is just ahead!” Max Trevelyan said. His voice was miserable. “But... someone....”

“I will stay,” said Loghain gruffly. “Grey Wardens began this. Let a Grey Warden end it. Let me.”

_This is that moment._ Anders could not let this go unanswered. “You have a family,” he said.

“So do you,” Loghain replied.

Blackwall spoke up. “I don’t. I can atone this way.”

“No,” Anders said firmly, slamming his staff on the ground. “The demon is creating the false Calling. It is in league with Corypheus. This will _not_ end. Not unless the demon is destroyed.”

“He is right,” Cole said. “It must perish.” He gave Anders a faint smile. “It would be... just.”

Startled, Anders gazed back. “And... merciful to the Wardens.”

Dorian Pavus smiled in surprise, but Max Trevelyan could not focus on the detente between the two. He just looked desperate. “But—how? _Look_ at it!”

The oozing, swaying bulk of the thing, tentacles and pincers and thousands of eyes, loomed before them.

Anders steeled himself. “I am a Spirit Healer,” he said. “I will heal you all, every time you need it, and... because of Justice... I won’t run out of mana. I’ll fight too when I can—”

Iron Bull was the first one to speak up. “Glowy mage is right,” he said. “We’ve fought bloody dragons before. They’re big and blast elements at us too. Let’s do this!” The reaver was the first to charge.

But in a moment, all the rest of them engaged the monster too. Anders stepped back, behind a barrier that Solas cast to protect the group’s Healer. None of the other mages knew much of that school, so he was invaluable and he knew it. Even Dorian was at a disadvantage as a necromancer, as it could not be frightened. However, the melee fighters hacked at it and the mages blasted it repeatedly with every element and entropic spell they had. Vile ichor, stinking and possibly Tainted—since the Nightmare had, after all, _some_ ability to influence Grey Wardens through the Taint—trickled out of the rents in its oozing flesh as the Inquisitor and his companions tore at it relentlessly.

It was a nasty, long, difficult fight, and the group certainly would have been slain to the last man and woman if a Spirit Healer had not been present to heal them all along—and perhaps this specific Spirit Healer, whose reservoir of mana could be renewed by the Fade being who shared his body when he let Justice take him over long enough to do it.

Anders did not actually get in that many blows against Nightmare himself. Although he believed he had changed the future shown to Caitlyn in her dream, he was not certain of it as the fight went on. _I was alone in it, evidently,_ he thought as he sent a group healing spell at the team. _Alone and fighting it myself. That’s not true here. But couldn’t it decide that I am the one to take out, since I keep healing the others? I should watch for tentacles, pincers, and blasts of magic myself. I won’t be confident of anything until that thing is gone._

But finally, that came to be, as the foul thing, noticeably weakened and wounded, collapsed into a steaming pile of its own shredded exoskeleton, loathsomely squishy flesh, and rank ichor. They waited for it to reconstitute itself—but instead, it was disappearing, seeping into the substance of the Fade.

“Let’s go!” Trevelyan shouted, gesturing with his glowing hand at the rift.

* * *

Anders knew that the fight against Corypheus would continue, but he was certain that his part in it was over. Loghain and Blackwall would deal with the surviving Orlesian Wardens. The mages back at Skyhold and scattered throughout the field included Healers. He had done his duty and survived, and now his duty was with his family in Kirkwall.

He debated sending a letter to Caitlyn once they were back at Griffon Wing Keep, but why bother with that? Unless they could get one of Leliana’s ravens, which were far away in Skyhold, a courier would not outrun him personally. Better just to go home at once, if the Inquisitor had nothing more for him to do.

“Are you coming too?” he asked Varric.

The dwarf shook his head. “I’d like to, Blondie, but they still need me here. And Cassandra....”

“I understand,” Anders said at once. Varric’s heart was Cassandra’s now, in that wry, gritty, gruff way that they both shared. Anders wondered if he would even rename his weapon for her. He also wondered if Varric would return to Kirkwall at all. From what he could gather, Cassandra was a candidate for the next Divine. So was Leliana, however, and the rumor was that she was the more likely choice of the two. But even so, Cassandra would consider it her duty to support the new Divine as she had the old. If she was not herself required to take vows of celibacy, Varric would probably want to stay by her side. Although she supported Varric’s romantic pursuit of the Seeker, it would be hard on Caitlyn for her longtime friend to be away... _but all the more reason why I should return to her immediately,_ he thought resolutely.

* * *

On the way back, Anders noted that the passage east was much easier than the passage west had been. Orlais was at peace again, with Empress Celene firmly ensconced on the throne, though the borders were different now. Though some in the Inquisition deplored it as exploitative and predatory, the King and Queen— _probably mostly the Queen,_ Anders thought—of Ferelden had taken advantage of the Orlesian war to seize territory all the way to the Frostbacks, including Haven—and the port city of Jader. It hadn’t been hard; all they had had to do to earn the locals’ allegiance was to guarantee peace if they swore fealty to Ferelden. Anora then made it a condition of Fereldan cooperation with the Inquisition that the eventual winner of the civil war would acknowledge and accept these territorial claims, and Celene had done so. Rumor had it that the Viscountess of Kirkwall had urged this course of action with Anora. Anders hoped it was true; he would be so proud... his bold, clever, beautiful wife....

He also noted the vastly increased Inquisition presence. He wondered about that—and worried a bit. The Inquisition did not seem to answer to any power but itself, not even the Chantry—which, admittedly, was still in a fragile state following the war, schism, and murder of its last Divine. The Templars that Trevelyan had saved from the red lyrium plot seemed to be intending to become Seekers instead. Would the Inquisition become the military arm of the new Chantry? Anders was not sure what he thought about that. Right now it was filled with people who were his and Caitlyn’s friends, but what if that changed? He didn’t want Caitlyn to become another head of state cowed by the Inquisition’s might, as Celene had.

Well, the future would hold what it held. Right now he just needed to return to his family.


	3. Peace and Freedom:  Caitlyn Hawke and Anders, II

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi again! Here is probably the last chapter of AU!Caitlyn and Anders. I hope you like it and that it is fitting and deserved for them.
> 
> This chapter is NSFW toward the end. Because of course it is. :)

_Dragon 9:41, Kirkwall._

The wind was chill, the sky was grey, and the nightmarish year was drawing to a close. In anticipation of First Day, people would bring out bowls of hot wassail and toddy to cheer the end of the old year and ring in the new, and no doubt that was happening elsewhere in Kirkwall.

But it was not happening in the Keep. Viscountess Caitlyn Hawke could not find any reason to cheer a new year yet, not so long as she had the dreadful uncertainty hanging over her of whether Dragon 9:42 would be her first year of a long, sad life as a widow.

_The stubborn, bull-headed man,_ she thought as she stood at a window, staring at the gloomy sky.  _And Justice is even worse. I didn’t want him to go. I told him what might happen... what I dreamed of... and now...._ Caitlyn sighed. She could not keep up her anger, much as it was usually a shield against pain. She missed Anders, and was worried about him, too much.  _All I can do is hope that he learned enough to prevent—that—from happening. It worked out before,_ she tried to reassure herself.  _Before the Deep Roads. I had a dream that Carver would die of the Blight sickness, and we were prepared, and when he did get it, he didn’t die because Anders had Grey Warden Joining materials. These dreams can be warnings, warnings we can act upon._

It was all that she could cling to until she heard word from the Inquisition—or, perhaps, Anders himself returned to her. She hoped it would be the latter; it had been several months and she missed him very much. She had not been parted from him for this long since— _no, don’t think it,_ she told herself, but it was too late. Memories of the dark time between his capture and her father’s death in Dragon 9:27, and their unexpected reunion in Kirkwall four years later, intruded on her mind. She tried to push these thoughts away.

Autumn had come and gone without him, and winter had now begun. The cool seasons were particularly grim in recent years in Kirkwall. To break up the cold darkness with fun and feasting, most areas of Thedas observed Satinalia on 1 Firstfall, but not Kirkwall—not anymore. Caitlyn remembered having to explain to her five-year-old, Johanna Bethany, when the little girl found a book with pictures of people celebrating Satinalia in fool’s motley, vivid colors, and masks, with feasts and gifts before them.

_“Perhaps someday Kirkwall will do that again,” Caitlyn said to her, “but for now... a terrible event happened on Satinalia Eve the year you were born. A mage-hating and Fereldan-hating mob killed hundreds of people.” She hated saying it, hating tarnishing her child’s innocence, but she would not lie to her children. “Kirkwall hasn’t celebrated Satinalia the old way since then, because so many people lost someone that night, and those who didn’t still experienced a terrible, traumatic thing.”_

_“Like Mal’s friend Alison,” Jo Beth said. “She lost her dad that night.”_

_Caitlyn nodded. “She is with her uncle now, but yes, she lost her father. Perhaps it will go back to how it was someday, but people aren’t ready yet.”_

_The child considered her mother’s words. “Did the mob die too?” she asked. “I hope they did, since they killed innocent people.”_

_Caitlyn tried not to grimace in guilt. “Yes,” she said briefly. “They are all dead.” By my order and my firestorm spell, even those who tried to surrender._

First Day was a less important holiday, but it too meant something else, something darker, to Kirkwall. First Day 9:37 was the day that Kirkwall awoke to a casing of ice on the cobblestones trapping the blood of Knight-Commander Meredith Stannard and every Templar who had backed her. For a city that had experienced political upheaval years ago when a Viscount had a Knight-Commander killed, it had been extremely unsettling for the same thing to happen again. Kirkwall had been on edge until word came from Val Royeaux that the Divine would not ask the Viscountess to step down, due to mitigating circumstances. But then, only days later, war began—and it had continued with little respite ever since, although the face of the enemy had changed this year.

Autumn and winter in Kirkwall were gloomy times, and they were even harder for Caitlyn and her family this year because so many people close to them were away. Varric was also with the Inquisition, and she greatly missed his wry japes and snark. Carver was in Amaranthine, under lockdown with the other Fereldan Wardens, who were apparently keeping to themselves to avoid the possibility of Corypheus stealing war secrets from their minds through the shared Taint. Merrill spent more time with him than she did in Kirkwall now, despite the Wardens’ unease. _It’s only fair and right that she should,_ Caitlyn thought, _since they are a couple, but it doesn’t mean that I don’t miss her_.

Fenris had found it difficult to stay in Kirkwall while the Free Mages of Thedas were in or near the city. The mages had not harmed him, but the presence of a mage army, answering to a pair of mage rulers, brought back old anxieties for him from his Tevinter days. Rather than letting him wander off alone, Isabela had taken him sailing in Rialto Bay—but that meant that she too was away from Kirkwall. Many of the mages were now scattered throughout Inquisition-held areas, but not all, and the ones who had come back to Kirkwall were the exact sort that Fenris could least accept. The Inquisitor had asked them to help him seal the Breach, but he had then gone to the Templar stronghold to save as many Templars from red lyrium as he could—and a whole company of mages had then refused to have any further business with the Inquisition, so deep was their distrust of Templars. These had returned to Kirkwall, for the most part, to serve “their” Viscountess and protect the city. Whatever their political views, their numbers were not that much greater than the numbers of mages who had been in the old Arcane Guard and official Healers, before the war. But Fenris was far away then, and Isabela with him.

Cassandra Pentaghast wrote to Varric a year ago and he left. When Anders left for Skyhold too, Aveline was the only close friend of Caitlyn’s remaining in town. And she had a family of her own now, a two-year-old daughter.

_My mother, uncle, and cousin are around,_ she thought,  _but I miss everyone else._ She sighed. She had not wanted to face this, but it seemed likely that she would only rarely have all of her friends and relatives nearby again. It was unreasonable to expect Merrill to choose her over Carver, especially since she had no place in the Sabrae clan of the Sundermount anymore. Of course she was instead making a place for herself in Ferelden with the man she cared for. Isabela’s very veins seemed filled with wanderlust, and Caitlyn knew she could not stay on dry land for long. If Fenris was truly this uncomfortable being around a company of free mages, then he probably would not spend much time in Kirkwall in the future either. Varric loved Kirkwall and was intensely loyal to Caitlyn, but he might nonetheless choose to stay by Cassandra’s side—unless she became Divine. If she did not, she would still spend a significant amount of time in Val Royeaux, and Caitlyn could not fault him if he decided to be there with her.

Anders....

He  _had_ to come back, she thought. He had to. She could accept the fact that her friends’ lives no longer revolved around her; it was only natural and fair to them that it would be so—but Anders was more than a friend, more than even her husband. It sounded like a silly, florid bit of poetry, but Caitlyn had felt for years that they were two halves of a whole. They understood each other, often without even needing to explain how. Their ways of looking at the world were a little different, but they had the big, important views in common, so their differences were strengths rather than problems. And physically... well, after almost ten years of marriage and a total of eight months as lovers, they knew each other’s needs as well as their own, both in and out of bed. They belonged together, and he  _had_ to return.

She moved to her desk and unfolded the letter he had sent her to accompany Jo Beth’s birthday gift. The paper was soft from frequent handling.

_I’m still at Skyhold, my love, but Trevelyan is about to head to the Western Approach to investigate the Warden issue. I have urged him to bring lots of people with him for this, as we discussed._

_I can’t promise that I’ll be able to write to you again until this business is settled. It’s a remote, unpopulated desert, and I don’t think Leliana’s ravens are coming with us. But I will send you word as soon as I can._

_I will._

_I’m not going to sacrifice myself, love. And with Justice, it will be difficult for any enemy to take me down in combat. You know what he can do to heal me. I know these are just words, and I can’t ask you not to worry... but I won’t do anything foolish. I promise. I love you and the children so much and I won’t ever willingly abandon you._

_The enclosed gift is for Jo. I know it’s early, but I can’t assume that I will be able to send anything in time for her birthday when I am in western Orlais. Try to keep her from discovering it before her birthday, though I know how stubborn and mischievous she is!_

Caitlyn set the letter aside. That was the last she had heard from him. It was understandable that he couldn’t send a letter again when he was in the desert, but it troubled her that there had been no word from anyone. Mal corresponded with Alison Dupres-Trevelyan, the Inquisitor’s orphan niece, who lived at Skyhold now. However, even she had not seen Anders— _or_ Varric—at the castle since the unit left for the Western Approach.

Caitlyn realized that she could spend the rest of the day staring out the window, but it wouldn’t bring him to her any faster. _I should return to work... and check on my mother._ Leandra was taking care of Jo Beth, doting grandmother that she was, and the child was... well, if Caitlyn were honest with herself, her daughter sometimes behaved utterly horribly. Mal had been an agreeable, well-behaved child, and he was now an agreeable, well-behaved boy of almost fourteen. Caitlyn wondered how much longer this would last before he entered an adolescent rebellion, but perhaps he never would. But Jo Beth was stubborn and demanding enough for both of them. Caitlyn recalled ruefully how _she_ had acted as a child, even threatening her mother with fire once if she did not give Caitlyn cookies—before her father had brought her up short with a lecture about abuse of magic. Jo Beth had most definitely inherited this trait, and Caitlyn supposed that on some level, she probably deserved to have a child who put her through what she had put her own mother through. _Maker preserve us when she starts doing magic,_ Caitlyn thought. She did not doubt that her daughter was a mage, since both of Jo’s parents and her brother were mages, and magic was on both sides of Caitlyn’s family too. Possibly Anders’ as well, but neither of them knew if he was the first mage in his family or not. What they did know was that mages together tended to breed true. _And that is no longer a worry for this family,_ she thought. _Hopefully it will stay that way, whatever becomes of the Inquisition._

Mal had done his first spell just before he turned five, the night that Caitlyn had come back from the Warden fortress where Corypheus had been confined. Now Jo Beth was five, and the Inquisition was fighting Corypheus. It seemed an auspicious time for Jo Beth to do her first spell. Caitlyn just hoped that Anders would see it.

* * *

“Your Grace!”

Caitlyn looked up from her desk. She had still had no word from Anders or Varric. First Day was less than a fortnight away. The Inquisition’s war against Corypheus was winding down, and people seemed to expect the ancient magister to fall any day, but no one had word about any events in the far-flung Western Approach, a desolate region very far from any population center. Every day had been an anxiety to Caitlyn now, all the more so since her daughter had taken to asking when Father was coming back—and Mal had understood, as he so often did, empathetic and perceptive as he was. He knew his father might not come back, and that dark awareness in him was terrible for Caitlyn to behold, as his mother. His gentle, brief hugs were as painful to her as Jo Beth’s demands and temper tantrums.

“Come in, Donnic,” she said wearily, waving her hand to cast a mild force spell that flung the doors open.

Donnic Hendyr entered the room and stood in respect. “There’s someone to see you,” he said. He cast his gaze down at the floor.

Terror suddenly gripped her. That did not sound good. Steeling herself, she managed to reply, “From where? And with what business?”

Donnic did not raise his gaze. He seemed to be trying to decide how to answer. “He said he was from Skyhold—the Inquisition castle. It’s business about that.”

Caitlyn’s heart sank. If it wasn’t Anders or Varric, that meant that the worst had happened—that she had lost _both_ of them, and the Inquisition had sent someone to tell her in person. She could not see any other meaning. Mustering all the courage she could, yet still feeling that this was unreal, that it _could not_ be happening, she rose to her feet. “Take me to him, then.”

As he led her down the corridor of the inner Keep, the part of the building to which only the family and their most trusted staff and friends had access, she noticed that he seemed guilty. He was unable to meet her eye, and he did not introduce any topic of conversation. _It’s not your fault,_ she thought miserably. _You had nothing to do with it. And don’t feel guilty that you still have your spouse and you’ll get to raise your child together. Survivor’s guilt helps no one. I know that personally. Anders and Varric were—_ she tried not to choke as the past-tense word flitted through her thoughts— _brave, stubborn, and dumb as a post about going looking for trouble, both of them._ Tears filled the corners of her eyes at that, but she was determined not to let them fall in front of the Inquisition envoy. She would be strong.

They reached the great doors of the inner Keep. Donnic moved to unbar them, but once again Caitlyn was swifter with her force spell. The beam rose up and then down to the floor to one side. Donnic gave her an apologetic look before pulling the doors open, then stepped aside as quickly as he could.

Before her stood a very familiar mage in a dark feather-mantle coat, his staff slung on one shoulder, his water canteen on his belt on one side and a pouch on the other side. A grin spread across his face.

_“You!”_ she exclaimed, nearly lunging at him, half out of love and relief, half out of fury. “Did you tell him not to say who you were?”

“I wanted to surprise you,” Anders said.

“It’s _not funny!_ Do you know what I thought?” Heedless and unconcerned about Donnic’s presence, she _did_ lunge at him now. As she fell into his arms and felt him tighten his embrace, she began to pummel his back. “I thought it was a messenger from Skyhold to tell me that you and Varric were both _dead!”_ She punctuated her words with her palms, thumping him like a Healer might thump someone who was coughing, not hard enough to bruise but hard enough to express the emotions that she felt.

“Well, Varric is quite all right too,” he reassured her—before feeling a sudden hot flame against his left cheek. _“Whoa—_ don’t do that!” he exclaimed, pulling her hand away even as the spell glowed orange.

“It’s what you deserve!” she said, trying to get him with the spell, which was the size of a candle’s flame—hot enough to sting, but not enough to do actual damage. He tightened his grip on her wrist and held her hand away from his face, but in response, she merely flung the small fireball at him. She laughed as he released her and swatted it out before it reached his hair or coat.

“I’m sorry,” Anders said, sounding sincere now. “I didn’t mean for you to worry, even for two minutes. I really didn’t. I just wanted your first awareness that I was home and safe to come from seeing me, not from anyone else’s lips. I’m here now, love. It’s all right.” He gazed at her, smiling gently. “And it’s because of you. That moment you dreamed about happened—”

Caitlyn drew her breath and stopped trying to punish him. She relaxed in his embrace, her arms sliding down his sides to rest on his waist. “I knew it,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t an ordinary dream.”

“It was real,” he said, “but because you had the dream, no one died in that fight. We defeated the demon, and we were prepared and knew to try because of you. It was the demon that was causing the false Calling, as a matter of fact, so it was very satisfying. Even though I had the smallest part in attacking it.”

She rested her head in the crook of his neck. “I’m sure your part was important.”

“I was the team’s Healer,” he said, “so... I suppose it was. It was the biggest and most powerful demon I’ve ever seen. But it’s gone now. It’s gone, Corypheus is soon to be gone—if he isn’t already—and I’m back, dearest.”

The outrage that she had felt at the trick vanished in that moment, along with the anxiety she had felt for his fate. Varric was still in danger, but he had survived being with the Inquisition for most of the year already, and it was Anders that she had feared would die. As the negative emotions left her, warmth, relief, and love surged in her to replace them. She got on her toes and ran her hands swiftly up his sides, through the feathers that adorned his shoulders, before letting them rest on the sides of his face. He was already leaning in and slightly downward to join the kiss.

He deepened it, completely unconcerned about who saw. Donnic had made himself scarce, not wanting to intrude on their private moment, but the doors separating the inner from the outer Keep were still wide open, and people were always gathered in the outer Keep—guards, petitioners, Healers on break from clinic duty, nobles mingling. Caitlyn and Anders did not care in the least. This was not the Imperial Court of Orlais where nobles stole forbidden kisses with their mistresses in the shadows for fear of blackmail; this was their own Keep and they were wed in the sight of men and the Maker. As he began to explore her mouth with his tongue and she nipped at his lips, the two of them devouring each other, she wrapped an arm around his upper back to pull herself closer. He tightened his grip on her so hard that she felt the quills through her velvet.

They drew apart to take a deep and much-needed breath. Anders ran a hand gently down one cheek, staring at her with eyes that were now half-wild... though not from the presence of his spirit, but rather, from desire. “I... think we should go inside,” he said. His gaze flitted back to the assorted people in the outer Keep. “I could kiss you for hours... Maker, I’ve missed you so much... but I  _don’t_ think we would remain clothed the whole time, and there are  _some_ things I’d rather that crowd didn’t see.”

“I quite agree.” She took his right wrist in one hand and pulled him forward, casting a force spell to close the doors and bar them once again.

“You’re really good at that now,” he remarked admiringly as they walked arm-in-arm down the corridor of the inner Keep.

“I haven’t cast a blood magic spell since the night that we killed Meredith,” she said quietly, “and this school of magic... well, Bethany would have been better at it.” She sighed.

Anders squeezed her hand compassionately. “But it honors her that you’ve become so good at it.”

“That’s the idea, to honor her,” Caitlyn said softly.

“You’re better than Trevelyan. He can do it... I saw him lift wood and stone with magic to clear paths and make makeshift bridges... but you’re better.”

Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “The way people talk, it’s as if the ‘Herald of Andraste’ is the greatest person who has ever lived.”

“He’s not the Herald of Andraste.”

“What a surprise. That never made sense. Andraste came long after the Magisters Sidereal entered the Fade, long after the First Blight. What would Corypheus have been to Andraste? ‘The _Maker’s_ Herald’ might have made sense, but I’m glad no one proposed calling Trevelyan that. It would have gone to his head... and I think the past few years show that blood gets spilled when people think they’re chosen by the Maker.”

“Well, Trevelyan never liked the title either; he thought it was sacrilegious, and now he knows it isn’t right. That demon I fought... well, we were _physically_ in the Fade—”

Caitlyn stopped cold and stared at him. “Truly?”

He nodded. “It was... interesting. The Fade looked every bit as finished and real as the material world, though it still had floating islands, impossible physics, and malleability. But when we were there, the Inquisitor learned what happened, why he was able to emerge from the rift. It wasn’t Andraste. It was his own will, with an assist from the spirit of Divine Justinia.”

Caitlyn sighed heavily; she regretted Justinia’s death, even though she had made her share of complaints about Justinia’s incrementalism over the years that led up to the mages’ war. She had never wanted that to happen, and she felt especially bad about the fact that it had happened because of the command of a creature that she had set loose—even though she had thought she had killed Corypheus right up until word of his reappearance in Haven reached Kirkwall.

Anders understood. He squeezed her hand. “I don’t know if what we saw in the Fade was really her soul, or just a spirit that had access to her memories and assumed her personality. I can’t think it would be the latter. Good spirits don’t practice deception, I thought....” He trailed off. After meeting Cole and Solas, he was unsure of many things related to spirits and demons. “Perhaps that is only true of certain kinds, like spirits of justice. Maybe other good spirits can be deceptive if it’s for a good reason, like compassion. I don’t know. But whatever it was that we saw, she was... at peace. She held no ill will for you, Caitlyn. She didn’t even hold ill will for Elthina.”

Caitlyn stared at him again. “You saw Elthina?” Guilt filled her face. “I’ve often wondered if we should have done that to her....”

“I saw her,” he said, “and... I don’t know. I think she did need to see why she was wrong, and sometimes the only way someone can understand that is to be among the people who are hurt. Well, these were spirits appearing as dead mage children, but anyway. But the time had come to release her, and... I did. She’s not trapped in the burning tower anymore.”

They reached the doors for the family parlor. Anders’ eyes widened, and he took a breath of anticipation as he realized that the children were inside. Caitlyn smiled knowingly at him as she turned the knob to let them both inside.

_“Daddy!”_

Jo Beth had not wasted a second in springing to her feet and attacking her father. Anders caught her as she reached him and lifted her up, making her squeal as her golden-blonde waves, identical in color to his hair but with the thickness of her mother’s red locks, bounced on her shoulders. The child laughed as Anders swung her in a circle before setting her down.

“Hello, Father,” Mal said more calmly from a desk in the corner. He set down his quill and covered the letter he was writing. A smile filled his face, and Caitlyn reflected on how he had been aware of the danger that Anders faced just as she was. A rush of warmth filled her at the thought that he must be feeling relief and love too at his father’s safe return.

Anders shot Caitlyn a sheepish and apologetic look that she well understood. They both wanted to celebrate their reunion intimately, but it was more important for him to spend time with the children right now. “I’m home,” he said, “and I’m glad to see both of you again.”

“You’d better not go back,” Jo Beth warned him. “I’ll stop you.” Caitlyn raised an eyebrow at her daughter, but the girl stared back defiantly.

Anders suppressed a chuckle for Caitlyn’s sake. “I am not going anywhere,” he reassured her. “My part in this war is over.”

“Good,” she declared. She got to her feet and clapped her hands together. From the far corner of the room, a half-grown mabari, pitch black in color, approached her. Next to Mal’s desk, another young mabari, this one the same tan as Caitlyn’s Baldwin, lounged. “Look how much Cyra and Connell have grown!”

Anders forced a smile. He had hoped one of his children would be a cat person like him... and, he supposed, there was still hope. After all, Caitlyn liked his cat; she just did not have one of her own. He petted his yellow cat Ser Pounce-a-Lot, who seemed jealous of the attention the dogs were begging. “They’re growing fast,” he agreed.

Baldwin himself was as old as Mal almost to the day, but mabari had long lives, and he was still hale. The pups, in fact, were sired by him on a black mabari that now sailed with Fenris and Isabela. The bitch had turned up at the Keep, injured and half-starved, but she did not imprint on any of the Healers who treated her. Instead she had imprinted on Fenris before he left. The elf was baffled as to why a mabari would have chosen to imprint on  _him,_ but it certainly was the case, and he had come to accept her and name her Liberty—as he suspected she had suffered a dark past as he had and had gotten free at last.

“Cyra is a good dog,” Jo Beth declared, a wicked gleam in her green eyes, “but what I really want is a baby dragon. I wish that had been your birthday gift for me, Daddy.” The mabari looked up at her with reproachful doggy eyes.

Caitlyn suppressed an exasperated sigh. She had explained to her daughter why it could not be, but like any stubborn child, Jo Beth had apparently decided simply to turn to the other parent when the first disappointed her. “That’s not very nice,” she scolded. “Your father picked out your gift especially for you.”

“Oh,” she said, realizing that. “Oh, well, I liked it, Daddy! Thank you. But a dragon?” She gave him the same kind of puppy eyes that Cyra had given her.

“I’m afraid not, sweet. Dragon babies don’t stay little,” Anders said. “They become big and dangerous—”

“Mabaris are dangerous!” she interrupted. At her words, all three dogs barked as if in approval.

“But they are tame, bred by people to be companions. Dragons are wild.”

“I heard of a duke who has a pet wyvern that _he_ tamed.”

“They’re two different creatures,” Caitlyn interjected, trying not to snap. She had had this entire discussion with Jo Beth before. _She’s like me to a fault,_ she thought, _refusing to take “no” for an answer when she wants something. Of course... that stubbornness is why Anders and I have a family and never have to fear that it will be torn apart again. We refused to accept “no” from the world. But we didn’t ask for dragons!_

“Hmph.” The child pouted, but fortunately, the half-grown puppy distracted her attention by bringing her a toy for play.

Anders stole a wry glance with Caitlyn as he took a breath. A smile crept across his face at the fact that he was once again spending time with his family, and would for the foreseeable future, but he still understood how trying it must be to have to handle a willful five-year-old alone, or with the assistance of the children’s mild-mannered grandmother at best, while also ruling a city. _I’m back now,_ he thought, _and I can take over managing the household and caring for her now. You will have a respite, love._

He gave her a squeeze on the shoulder and rose from the seat, remembering his other child. Mal covered the letter again at his father’s approach but did not seem averse to the company.

“Who are you writing to, son?” Anders asked genially.

“That _girl,”_ Jo Beth responded at once from the floor.

“He asked _me,”_ Mal said, a rare edge in his voice. “Alison,” he said to his father. “She is learning about _necromancy_ from... well, she calls him her ‘uncle Dorian.’” The subject seemed a little awkward to him.

“Dorian Pavus. He and Trevelyan are a couple,” Anders said nonchalantly. “I’m sure that’s why she calls him that. Though I learned that they actually _are_ distant cousins too... quite a shock _that_ must be to the pious Trevelyans, that they are related to a Tevinter magister family. But yes, he knows necromancy.”

“Well, we share what we learned. I was telling her about something I learned in the clinic.”

Anders nodded in approval and pride. Though he was not quite fourteen, Mal was becoming a very good Healer himself, and it was good that he was exchanging magical knowledge with another mage. He and Caitlyn could order necromancy books from Tevinter, but there was nothing quite like hearing from someone who had practiced a discipline of magic personally.

From the other side of the room, Caitlyn smiled in approval as well. She had known of the correspondence, of course. She also flattered herself that she held a realistic expectation of its significance... _unlike a couple of my allies,_ she thought, trying not to chuckle. Ser Marlein Selbrech and her husband Hugo, who were longtime allies of Caitlyn and had a daughter Mal’s age, were anxious about Mal’s friendship with Alison Dupres-Trevelyan when the mage girl had lived in Kirkwall, shuffled from foster home to foster home. They were even more anxious now that she was settled with her uncle, the famous Inquisitor, and Mal still wrote to her. They obviously wanted a connection to the ruling family of Kirkwall and believed that Mal’s friendship with an equally eligible girl, who was a mage like him, to boot, would threaten that ambition. Caitlyn just found the whole situation amusing. Mal was also friends with Ser Marlein’s daughter Antonia, but she was not a mage, while Alison was. It was only natural that a pair of mages would discuss their unique gift—or that a pair of friends would continue to keep in touch when one moved away. So far as she knew, Mal was _friends_ with both girls. The three young people were thirteen and fourteen, Caitlyn thought, and it would behoove her allies to keep that fact in mind. _They are all too young. I didn’t fall in love or try anything other than idle kissing until I was twenty,_ she thought. She stole a quick glance at Anders as he talked quietly with Mal about the discipline of magical healing, and a warm smile formed on her face at the memory. _Granted, it was because I was afraid of being vulnerable, but they are still essentially children. It will sort itself out. He might fall for neither one of them in the end._ She was not worried about it, and neither was Anders, she knew.

Caitlyn watched fondly as Anders reconnected with Mal and Jo Beth, talking eagerly with his son about magic and answering Mal’s questions until the little girl grew jealous of the attention and stormed over to Mal’s desk to take some of her father’s attention away from her brother. _I’m so happy that this is real,_ she thought, _and will happen again many times in the future. I was terrified that it never would again._ Now that he was back, Caitlyn was starting to feel a sense of unwinding, the release of pressure from within herself. She realized it was the departure of her fear for Anders’ life and the accompanying stress that had come from not knowing. _We changed Carver’s fate and now Anders’,_ she thought in satisfaction. _Maybe we really can have a life of peace and freedom after all. It has been so long since I’ve been able to believe that that was possible._ In fact, Caitlyn had not had this feeling of hope since before the disastrous Conclave about a year ago. Then, the mages’ war was over, her army triumphant, the reactionary schism defeated, and all that remained had been to decide on what the new order would be. That had been the last time she had felt optimistic—and, she realized, it had been only a brief moment even then. Before that there had been four years of war; before that, two years of growing tensions and violence in her first years as Viscountess; before _that,_ years of fear for herself and her family.

 _Other than that brief moment between the war’s end and the Conclave, I have never been wholly optimistic about having a peaceful life with my family,_ she realized with a start. _I’ve always been afraid. So has Anders. Even when I had hope, I was still angry at the injustice and afraid of failure and loss. But—and Maker curse it all if I’m wrong—it really does seem that we don’t have to be afraid anymore. Can we ever truly get used to that?_

She would have to talk about it with Anders, she realized. They always felt better, both of them, after they talked about heavy subjects. They had always been stronger together, and she knew this would be no exception.

* * *

They were relaxing in the hot bath together when she broached the subject. “I’m not sure that I can even _trust_ times of peace anymore,” she confessed. “They never last. Nothing does. I _know_ that.”

He considered thoughtfully before answering. “No,” he said slowly, “nothing does... but something can still become more common or normal than it used to be.”

She took that in as well. “I suppose so,” she said, “and I would like to believe that our part in the great turmoils of the age is over. At least... if there is any big issue in the future that we must take part in, it’ll be a new one, not ghosts from our past that try to destroy the world, or a horrible system that we thought we’d worked to destroy being rebuilt.”

“Yes, I think the Chantry has learned a hard lesson of what will happen if it tries to take our hard-won freedom away from us again,” he said darkly.

She gazed at him in concern. “But you think it might try anyway? Is _that_ the rumor in the Inquisition, that Justinia’s successor will be someone who will go back to the bad old days? I know Trevelyan is... not a fire-starting revolutionary like we are... but... would he really approve of....”

“No,” he assured her at once. “Quite the opposite. In fact... most likely, we _know_ the next Divine. Worst case is Cassandra Pentaghast.”

“She would be another Justinia... but there is now a new order for mages.”

Anders nodded. “And the Inquisition people think that the more likely outcome is....”

_“Oh,”_ Caitlyn said, emerald eyes widening as a smile formed on her face. She visibly relaxed in relief. “That’s great. I doubt we will ever be as close friends as we were during the first years of my rule, when we wrote....” Some of the happiness faded. “She was infuriated when the war broke out.”

“I’d like to ask her what choice she thinks we had. Meredith had abducted Mal and defied Justinia. We had to kill her, and all who stood with her. It’s not your fault that the northern cities had such a problem that they went to war.”

“I agree. Still, she was angry, because Justinia had wanted to prevent war. I don’t think she saw that we _did_ try but that our enemies had left us with no choice but violence. And then Corypheus _killed_ Justinia. Corypheus, whom I inadvertently set loose. For that, I’d be angry with me too.” She sighed. “I doubt our friendship will ever be what it once was, but we have exchanged letters again, as you know, and if she becomes Divine, she will be _quite_ good at protecting her position and her safety—and cultivating people as potential successors who share her beliefs.” Something occurred to her then, and she laughed. “I just remembered—the first night I met her, in Lothering, she told me about her views of mages. I was suspicious and distrustful, and she did it to reassure me that she wouldn’t turn in my family. I said something to the effect that _she_ should be made the Divine someday.”

Anders chuckled too. “You have the gift of prophecy, I think.”

“No,” Caitlyn laughed. “Just some lucky phrases and affinity for the Fade.”

He smiled, at ease now. “I think it will be all right,” he said, returning to the beginning subject. “I really do think we’ll have peace for a while now.”

“What do you do in times of peace and security?” she said ironically. “I’ve never known one. I’ve known fear, or fear _and_ violence. That’s about it.”

“It’s the same for me. I guess we get to decide what we do with such times. That’s what we wanted, the right to choose how we lived.” He shrugged, his lean but toned arms almost glowing in the steamy bath. Caitlyn felt a sudden urge to touch him. They were clean. They could get out of the bathtub soon....

“Well, we’re mages,” she said with a grin. “It’s fitting if what we decide to do is different from what other people, who have some experience with a _normal bloody life,_ typically do.”

He studied her, the smile on his face growing more wicked. “We certainly can do things differently.”

The urge she felt suddenly flared up. “Oh? Is that how it is?”

“It’s been months,” he murmured.

“And whose fault is that? Who went to the Maker-forsaken wasteland of western Orlais?” Caitlyn drew close to him, ripples of water lapping at him from her approach. She reached his side and ran a hand up his side underwater, their skin softened from the bath.

Anders trembled and swallowed hard. “I wish you had been with me. There was a place that was just.... When I saw it, I couldn’t stop thinking of how much I wanted you there. You and the children—they would love it—but especially you. It would have been a perfect place for...  _this.”_ His voice turned into a growl at the last as he pulled her into a tight, nude embrace, both of them submerged to the chest in the deep tub.

Caitlyn caressed his arms, sides, and chest as they kissed languidly. She liked this, though she did not actually mean to take him—or let him take her— _in_ the tub. But being in the warm water together was very intimate and sensual nonetheless, and she felt a growing heat between her legs that had nothing to do with the water.

She drew away gently from him, though her arms remained around his waist and his around hers. “I think I prefer it here,” she admitted. “I don’t like the desert. It’s arid and cruel, and filled with vicious creatures that have to be equally cruel to survive. There’s enough cruelty in me already—”

“Please don’t say that of yourself. You’re a _leader,_ and being a leader means that you have to make choices that affect a lot of people and... hurt some of them.”

“I enjoy doing it when I think they deserve it.”

“You take satisfaction in dealing out justice. Don’t argue with me about that,” he said with a smirk. “I _am_ the expert in it, after all.” He hoped that his playful, affected cockiness would prevent her from falling into a hole of doubt and self-derision. “I wanted to tell you about the place I saw.”

Caitlyn had looked to argue further, but she paused to consider his words before nodding. “I meant what I said about deserts. I don’t care for them. I grew up in Ferelden. This must be a _very special_ desert for you to like it so.”

“You dislike the barren wasteland beyond the Vimmarks. I don’t blame you for that... the place is a death trap, and the Western Approach is much like it in some ways. I meant a different place in western Orlais.”

“Are the Orlesians hiding a secret arboreal grotto in the wasteland?” Caitlyn said wryly.

“You’re not far off, actually.” She sat upright in the tub at this and paid full attention as he began to tell her of the Forbidden Oasis. “It’s surrounded by desert, but when you’re in the middle of the central pool, you forget all about that. It’s _beautiful,_ Caitlyn,” he said feelingly. “Waterfalls, mists and sprays, a crystal-clear pool that is refreshed naturally... a large pool, too, large enough to swim in, with little islands and sandbars and side branches... plants and trees growing in it... and surrounding all of this, the red sandstone, and the ancient elven temple hidden in the mists behind one of the waterfalls.”

Caitlyn stared at him in surprise. “An ancient elven temple? I can picture this... and... well... it actually does sound beautiful,” she acknowledged.

“We have to go there together when everything is settled,” Anders urged. “The children too.”

She considered it. The place did sound very special. “I would do that... if it is safe. I meant what I said about vicious desert predators, Anders. It seems to me that they would seek refuge in a place like this, too.”

“Trevelyan said that there used to be a lot more. He thinks they were associated with the demon inside the old temple—it’s dead now,” he assured her when her eyes flew wide at this. “When I was there, I didn’t see anything in the pool to worry about. The Inquisition holds the site now.”

Caitlyn thought about it before nodding. A smile formed on her face. “It sounds beautiful, just as you said,” she said, leaning forward into his arms, “and if you want me—and the children—to see it this much, it must be special. We can make travel arrangements once things are settled.”

Anders smiled broadly.

“However,” she said, taking his hands in hers and rising from the tub, “for _tonight,_ I have other plans for us.”

He let her pull him from the now lukewarm water. “I expect they’re similar to the plans I made on the way back.”

They stepped out of the tub and toweled themselves off quickly. There was no point in stepping into smallclothes or nightwear, and Caitlyn enjoyed the sight of his body, still flushed from the steamy bath and the scrubbings they had given each other. With his blood so heated, he seemed especially alive like this. _Alive,_ she thought, drawing close to him in a warm embrace that quickly turned to a passionate, deep kiss. _You’re alive and with me, my love. You came back to me to share my life and raise our children and tell me of pretty places that you want me to know too. You’re mine and I’m yours, and nothing and no one is going to separate us again._

Anders was moaning against her lips as he plundered her mouth. His arms were around her back and her hands were everywhere, roaming, feeling every inch of heated skin that she could find, and as she pressed her nude body against his, she felt him harden. She broke the kiss—he groaned and moved to try to take her lips with his again—and before he could claim her once more, she reached for his stiffening cock to give him a slight squeeze and teasing stroke.

He thrashed like a man in pain, and the look on his face transformed from desperate need and surrender to determined resolve. A shudder passed down Caitlyn at that look—but she retained just enough command of herself to give him a second stroke.

He snapped, losing control. “You aren’t the only one who has been needy,” he growled, tightening his grip on her waist as he steered her through the doors to their bedroom and towards the grand four-poster canopy bed. A fire crackled merrily in the hearth, and the runed lamp next to her side of the bed glowed pale yellow. Reluctantly he released one hand from her waist to pull the drapes away, then pushed her backward onto the mattress, flat on her back.

Caitlyn raised her legs onto the bed and shifted on the mattress until a pillow was beneath her head, elevating her comfortably. Anders crawled on top and pulled the drapes closed as she settled eagerly on the mattress, opening her legs for him in anticipation.

Anders gazed at her on bent knees for a moment. It was too long.

“You waited months,” she burst out. _“I_ waited months—and I wasn’t sure if you really would come back! What are you waiting for _now?”_ His fully erect cock caught her eye. “Not for me to get you ready, I see—and I assure you, I’m ready too.” She gazed at him as a sideways smirk formed on her face. “See for yourself.”

He glanced swiftly at her feminine core that she offered eagerly to him, which was so ready for him that her wetness shone in the dim light. That settled the matter for him. A grin formed on his face as he crawled the remaining inches to settle himself between her legs. Just as she let out a sigh of relief, expecting him to lower his body to hers and fill her, instead he swung one leg, then the second, atop his shoulders.

Caitlyn gasped as she realized what he intended. “You don’t have to—” she began to say.

His smile became asymmetrical too, to match the one she had just worn. “You didn’t want me to go,” he said. “I did anyway, and you worried about me for the whole time that I was away. I’d say I _do_ have to, darling.”

She breathed deeply as he leaned in, ghosting her core with his lips. He knew her body as well as his own, but he never failed to marvel at her. _She is so beautiful,_ he thought. He noticed the dark red curls the same hue as her long mane but several shades darker. “They think Andraste was a beautiful redhead too,” he remarked.

He had meant it as a compliment to her, but she merely groaned. “Anders, if there is one thing I don’t want to hear about in bed, it’s bloody Andraste.”

He chuckled, noting her squirm as his breath passed over her sensitive spot. “I wasn’t finished. I was going to say, I think you must be prettier.”

“Good. If she came back from the Maker’s side and you looked at her like you look at me, I’d throw a fireball at her—and then you. As I am about to now. Enough. You’re tormenting me.”

Despite the domineering bravado in her words, he could tell from the expression on her face that she really did need him. He would not make her wait any longer, then. He took the plunge, holding her legs in place as she shook from the touch of his tongue and fingertips against her womanhood.

It did not take that much to turn her from the fiery-tempered, sharp-tongued, demanding woman— _the fearsome Mage Viscountess of Kirkwall,_ Anders thought as he plundered her heated wet cunt—to the _other_ Caitlyn Hawke that he alone of men knew this intimately. She collapsed onto the pillow and mattress, surrendering herself to his mouth and fingers as they teased her inner thighs, the entrance to her passage, her sensitive clitoris. In a matter of less than a minute, her demands had turned to moans and pleas for him to _keep going, yes, like that, right there, Anders—_

He wanted to make her come. _She deserves it; she has been afraid that she would never see me, kiss me, hold me, or make love to me again._ But he was still as hard as a rock and he couldn’t wait much longer. He did not want to ask her to please him with her mouth or allow him to sate himself in her body if she could not take pleasure from that too, even though it would not hurt her after being brought to climax this way. He had to control himself.

She was shaking beneath him, very close indeed. Reluctantly, Anders drew away, planting a soft but sensual kiss on her mound as he did. She groaned and forked him the evil eye. “You didn’t—” she began to say.

However, as she was speaking, he was already positioning himself over her. Before she could complete the admonition, he was between her legs, his tip at her wet core, almost dipping in of its own accord, they were both so ready. Or was she angling herself downward ever so slightly to take what he had just denied her?

It didn’t matter. Before she could do anything but let out a gasp, he surged forward, filling her to the hilt.

She muffled a shriek of relief, delight, lust, and eagerness as he buried himself in her fully, then drew out almost all the way, then back in her. She collapsed onto the pillow and mattress once more, except for her arms and hands, which found their way to his back, holding him in place, caressing him possessively as he moved in her. “Anders,” she moaned. He leaned forward to kiss her, making her shudder from the change in angle that hit a new pleasure center inside her. She tasted herself on his mouth as he kissed her deeply, just as deeply as they had kissed in the bath.

“I missed you so much,” he murmured against her lips, moving in her all the while, rapidly approaching his peak, “and I never want us to be afraid like that again.”

“Then—then you know what to do,” she gasped, shaking and trembling beneath him as he held her waist and filled her over and over again. Though she could not spare _too_ much thought for it in this heady moment, she was a little embarrassed about how quickly she was approaching her climax; she had not been brought to completion this quickly since their physical reunion in Kirkwall in Dragon 9:31, and before that, it had only been in the earliest days of being lovers with him, when she was enjoying the exciting and still-unfamiliar feeling of experiencing sexual intimacy, that he could make her come this fast. But they _had_ been apart for several months, longer than any time since the long separation. It was natural. And he was clearly approaching his peak too.

Her moans and verbal pleas changed, becoming more ragged and incoherent as she reached her pinnacle. She gripped his back and shoulders with her fingers, just aware enough not to dig nails into him, but rather holding him with the soft pads of her fingers like a lifeline as his thrusts became less rhythmic and more desperate. Her eyes rolled back and her lids fluttered closed as the crest hit her—sparks seemed to pop in her head, and _did_ pop from her hands, eliciting a surprised gasp from him—and she shuddered, shook, trembled, and surrendered utterly as she vaguely heard his own gasp, felt his magic spark into her waist to match hers, and felt his warm seed fill her.

She was aware enough when he pressed himself against her in the afterglow, his heated hands running up and down her sides as he pressed desperate, grateful kisses on her neck and her face. “You’re wonderful,” he murmured, his body collapsing upon hers. “Wonderful and amazing.”

“So... so are you,” she managed to reply, threading her fingers into his gold hair. He nestled in the spot where her neck and shoulder met, giving her a final kiss for the night. “You saved the Wardens. _You_ are amazing. And I never want to be away from you for long again.”

“You won’t be,” he whispered.

* * *

_The following day._

Word of Corypheus’s defeat reached the Viscountess’s Keep. As Anders had been traveling home from the far-flung deserts—and oases—of western Orlais, the Inquisitor had remained busy. The ancient magister was finally dead for good. Whatever might trouble Thedas in the future, Caitlyn thought, it surely would not be another thing that she was responsible for, either wholly or partly. _Our lives are our own at last,_ she thought. _As we always wanted._

Mal had no memory of Corypheus and limited memories of the night that his mother had been away at the fortress where the Grey Wardens had imprisoned him. He understood the situation, but it was not personal to him now that his father was safe at home—and, in any case, a letter from Alison Dupres-Trevelyan was included in the official correspondence from Skyhold, conveying her eagerness to go to Tevinter with her uncles and start her training in the prestigious Circle of Minrathous, where she had been accepted.

“She could learn here now,” he remarked to his parents and sister when he finished reading his letter. “It’s the ‘City of Mages,’ after all.”

It was true, Caitlyn thought. Between the Healers, Arcane Guard, remnants of the Free Mages who had returned to Kirkwall rather than fight alongside Templars in the Inquisition, and those scores of mages who never joined the army at all, but saw Kirkwall as a place where they would be safe from attack by the prejudiced—and the mage couple who ruled it as the iron defenders of that safety—Kirkwall was dubbed the City of Mages more often than the City of Chains now. Caitlyn liked it.  _City of Mages, City of Freedom,_ she thought.  _The opposite of the City of Chains. And since a mage was the one who brought chains to the city long ago in the first place, it’s very just that mages should break them at last._

“She could,” she agreed, “but she wants to be with her family for now. Who knows what may happen when she is older?”

“True,” he said agreeably.

“Varric is coming back too,” Anders observed.

“Yes,” Caitlyn said. “I’ll be glad to see him again.” The official word of Corypheus’s defeat had also included a letter from Varric. The dwarf would be in Kirkwall whenever Cassandra did not have Seeker business in Val Royeaux.

Caitlyn had no intention of removing him from her Small Council. She did not need to meet with them as often as she had during the pre-war and war years. Kirkwall was... becoming peaceful.  _Peaceful and free,_ she thought. It warmed her heart that Varric, one of her oldest friends, would be returning.

She shared a glance with Anders. _But you most of all, my love._

“Why don’t _I_ have a letter?”

Caitlyn, Anders, and Mal glanced up sharply at the extremely angry and indignant glare of Jo Beth. “You don’t know anyone at Skyhold,” Caitlyn told her daughter.

“I know Varric!” the child exploded. She stamped her feet in furious envy.

“Varric’s letter was to all of us, including you,” Anders said hurriedly. It actually hadn’t been, but he wanted to forestall a tantrum.

“It wasn’t a letter just for me. It’s not fair!” She stamped her feet again and flung her hands out from her body, small fists clenched.

Two tiny fireballs the size of candle flames escaped her fists and blasted the carpet. Jo Beth shrieked in sudden fear as two small flames began to smoke near her feet, even as her parents were rushing to the rescue to put out the flames—her first magical spell.

“It’s all right,” Anders said, opening his arms to his daughter as Caitlyn extinguished the flames. Jo Beth, terrified out of her wits suddenly, her tantrum forgotten, ran into her father’s arms and burst into tears. “Hey now,” Anders said, cradling her head, “don’t cry! You just did your first magic! That’s something to be proud of.”

She hiccuped, trying to stifle her tears, which were clearly tears of fear. As Anders comforted her and Caitlyn and Mal drew close to offer encouragement and assurance to the child as well, she stopped crying and wiped her tears away.

“I did magic!” she declared.

Caitlyn smiled. She was nervous, she had to admit—nervous that Jo Beth’s first spell had happened in the midst of an outburst of anger, and nervous that it had been destructive, rather than an attempt at a healing spell, as her brother’s first spell had been. _However...._

“You did!” she said, giving her little girl a quick hug. “And do you know what? It was the same spell as _my_ first!”

Jo Beth glanced at her mother’s face curiously. “You cast fire too?”

Caitlyn nodded. “I did, just like you.” A fond smile formed on her face at the memory. “I was scared and proud at once too, also just like you, I bet.”

Jo Beth hesitated for a moment before nodding.

“My father, your grandfather Malcolm, was proud of me for it, just as we are proud of you.” She caressed her daughter’s cheek. “He started to teach me magic after that.”

The girl’s fear vanished, replaced at once with eagerness. “I can learn magic like Mal at last!” she exclaimed happily.

“You certainly can—and you will,” Anders said. He gave her a gentle hug, which she returned. When she bounded away joyously, her jealousy and anger about the letters completely forgotten along with her fear, he looked up to meet Caitlyn’s eyes with his.

They gazed tenderly at each other and smiled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember the dolls of Caitlyn and Anders that I made? Take a look at her [new gown](https://betagyrewrites.wordpress.com/2020/03/07/caitlyn-hawkes-viscountess-gown/). It's that one she wears on several important occasions in _Spells of Power_.


End file.
